Buffy versus the Evil Dead
by Demon-Fighter Ash
Summary: When Giles recieves a mysterious phone call from Annie Knowby, Buffy and the gang journey to an old cabin, where they find the dreaded Necronomicon and end up fighting for their lives against the Evil Dead. A Buffy/Evil Dead crossover fic.
1. Prologue: Within the Woods

Disclaimer:  
  
The characters of Buffy, Giles, Spike, Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara belong to Joss Whydon and Mutant Enemy Productions, while the characters of Raymond Knowby, Annie Knowby, and Father Allard belong to Renaissance Pictures and Heavy Iron Studio. The story is based on both the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" television series and on Renaissance Picture's Evil Dead series, directed and written by Sam Raimi. This fan-fic explores a crossover scenario between the Buffy and Evil Dead storylines and is not written for profit. So please don't sue me.  
  
Buffy Context:  
  
This story takes place in an alternate version of season six, during the autumn after Glory's defeat. The only difference is that, in this version, Buffy survived and season five had a happy ending. Hence, the Buffy characters are emotionally at the same place they were during the Glory season--Willow and Tara are still a couple, Spike's love is still totally unrequited, and Buffy's still her cheerful old slaying self.  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
The idea for this story came from a conversation after the Buffy vs. Dracula episode about how Buffy and the gang would fare against other horror villains. A big Evil Dead fan, the idea of the scoobies being forced to assume Ash's role in a battle against the Book of the Dead intrigued me. A lot of the fun with writing and reading this story is simply watching how the situation unfolds when Buffy and the gang are the ones faced with it, how all the classic one-liners and Evil Dead trademarks work their way into the Buffy-verse and how the different characters respond to it...  
  
  
  
Buffy vs. the Evil Dead  
  
by Demon-Fighter Ash  
  
Prologue: Within the Woods  
  
1  
  
Bright early-afternoon autumn sunlight flickered through the green fluttering leaves of the trees lining the small street as the last of the Magic Box's customers trailed out onto the sidewalk. Giles flipped the sign on the glass door to "closed for inventory," then walked back to through the shop, while Willow and Tara sat at a table working on their college homework. Anya counted the registers carefully, then suddenly began cheering.  
  
"We broke two thousand," she gleefully shouted, "this calls for celebration!"  
  
"Dance of capitalist superiority," Willow asked without looking up from her book.  
  
"Nope," she said happily, "this is bigger. Flying cartwheel of free- enterprise!"  
  
"Not again," Giles groaned, rubbing his forehead as Anya began to somersault forward, bouncing from hand to hand through the store until she suddenly tumbled across a chair and slammed onto her back.  
  
"Guess demons don't get to practice cartwheels much," Tara giggled as she read over Willow's shoulder.  
  
The telephone rang and Giles looked over to Anya as she crawled back onto her feet.  
  
"Still woozy," she shook her head, and Giles walked behind the counter as she sat down at Willow and Tara's table, picking up the phone and answering in short, clipped tones.  
  
"Magic Box, this is Giles. How can I help you?"  
  
"Mr. Giles," a young woman's voice answered over the phone, "it's Annie Knowby. You have to help us, I didn't know who else to call. It's about my father."  
  
"Annie Knowby," he said, stunned, "what's happened? Is Raymond alright?"  
  
"It's the book we found in Kandar eight years ago," she said, her voice trembling with panic, "something went wrong with the translations. He's at the mountain cabin, alone...Giles, I think he tried to read the book aloud..."  
  
"Good lord," Giles whispered to himself, "you mean the Necronomicon?"  
  
Willow suddenly glanced up as she heard the name, her face tensing with horrified recognition.  
  
"Yes," Annie sobbed, "I'm on my way there now, from New York. Please meet me at the cabin, we have to make sure he's alright. I don't know how far it's gone..."  
  
"Don't worry," Giles answered firmly, "I'm on my way. It'll just take a few hours to get ready."  
  
"Thank you," she sighed with relief, "I'll see you there."  
  
The phone suddenly went dead and Giles looked at it for a moment before slowly setting it back down on the receiver.  
  
"I have to leave for a few days," he said suddenly, "Anya, can you and Xander handle the store?"  
  
"Oh, no problem," Anya answered cheerfully, "I can make lots more money when you're not here obsessing over fair prices and store hours," she yelped as Xander elbowed her hard.  
  
"She means we'll be alright," he answered, "what's going on?"  
  
"Maybe nothing," he answered softly, still dazed, "but I have to go check on an old friend. I'll be back by Monday."  
  
2  
  
Crickets chirped in the deep forest, the ground covered with a damp blanket of rotting leaves, the trees bare and skeletal against the cloud- swept sky. The cabin sat deserted in the center of a clearing, the black wooden walls warped by decades of rain, the windows crudely boarded up from the inside.  
  
Within the cabin, Annie Knowby lay still and silent on the living- room floor, a young woman with short blonde hair wearing a yellow blouse and khaki shorts, a thick ceremonial dagger jutting out of her spine. Her dead face suddenly rolled sideways against the ground, blank white eyes staring out the window, past the gloomy gray woods outside, and her black lips cracked upward in a cruel, sardonic smile.  
  
"We'll be waiting for you, Rupert." 


	2. Chapter 1: Nightfall

Buffy vs. the Evil Dead  
  
by Demon-Fighter Ash  
  
Chapter 1: Nightfall  
  
1  
  
"And he seemed pretty wiggy," Buffy asked as she dropped her bookbag onto the store-counter, glancing back out the window as the mid-afternoon sun began to sink across the sky, instinctively planning tonight's patrol through the vampire-infested town of Sunnydale, even though lately the nightly patrols had grown so uneventful that she'd actually started to bring books-on-tape with her to help catch up with her the audited college classes she'd enrolled in lately.  
  
She looked around at the rest of the gang: Xander sat with Anya at one of the tables and Willow stared at the store computer's screen, cocooning herself within the familiar world of java-scripts and internet protocols, while Tara watched her from the counter with concern, her head resting in her folded arms.  
  
"REALLY wiggy," Willow corrected her as she typed nervously on the store's computer and fretted, "he was completely wigged. Whole new dimensions of wigginess. Tell her, Xander!"  
  
"Yeah," Xander answered, "it was a definite highlight in wigging history. It's like he went into a trance as soon as he got that phone- call."  
  
"You don't suppose he really did," Buffy asked suspiciously.  
  
"Oh no," Willow reassured her, "he was himself, just...wigged self. I overheard some of what he said on the phone and the names he mentioned...like the Necronomicon. I've read that name before and it's never been good. It's always evil destroy-the-world kinda stuff."  
  
"But if he was involved in something like that," Buffy asked, "why wouldn't he tell us?"  
  
"You know how he gets about these things," Willow pouted, "he turns all it's my responsibility, I have to handle it and I can't put any of you in danger,' like staying in Sunnydale's supposed to be safe."  
  
"Yeah," Buffy answered as she sat down at a table, "I've seen that before. So what do we do?"  
  
"What do we do about what," Dawn called out as she stepped through the back door of the Magic Box and jogged into the main shop, dropping her bookbag by the door as she pulled out a chair and sank into it, exhausted from school.  
  
"Giles getting wiggy with it," Buffy answered, smiling a little at the sight of her younger sister.  
  
"That's never good," Dawn replied, "so what are we going to do about it?"  
  
"We don't even know where he's going," Anya shrugged.  
  
"Actually, I do," Willow answered with a twinge of guilt as she looked up from the monitor, "I heard him say the name Knowby, then he said Raymond, so I did a search on that name, checking with all the college listings first because, well, it's Giles. I found a Professor Raymond Knowby of Dextin University, a professor of ancient history and archeology. He also teaches courses in folklore and mythology."  
  
"Not good combinations in our experience," Xander sighed, "so you think Giles went to visit him?"  
  
"Uh-uh," Willow shook her head, "Giles took those hiking boots he bought for that camping trip we took a few years ago, the ones he hated, so he's probably going out to the woods. I searched the state records for property listed under the name Raymond Knowby and I found a cabin in a state forest, same state as the university."  
  
"You really are worried," Buffy said softly, trying to remember the last time she'd seen her best friend doing this much computer-hacking, "do you think we should go up there and check it out, make sure he's okay?"  
  
"I've got a really bad feeling," she answered, "he's got an hour head- start, but you know how Giles drives. If we hurry, we could probably beat him there, or at least catch up with him."  
  
"And what if he really is just checking up on an old friend," Buffy asked.  
  
"Then we could go on a camping trip," Tara answered as Willow bit her lip nervously, "we'll stop by on the way and, if everything's okay, we'll just keep going to the campgrounds."  
  
"I'm not doing anything this weekend," Dawn replied.  
  
"That sounds pretty manly," Xander offered, "I could show off all my wilderness skills, doing things like pulling fish out of water with strings and fending off small furry animals. It'd be fun."  
  
"What kind of small furry animals," Anya asked apprehensively.  
  
"Just squirrels, honey," he reassured her, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand as she relaxed.  
  
"Alright," Buffy answered, "one spur-of-the-moment camping trip coming right up. Do you think Spike can handle patrols this weekend until we get back?"  
  
"What," Spike answered from the back door, his shadow looming through the store, "and let the lot of you have all the fun? Not a chance--I've got my own trees to hug, mother nature to commune with, or whatever."  
  
"There is no way," Buffy said slowly, "I am spending a weekend in the woods with..."  
  
"Why would you even want to go," Xander asked sharply.  
  
"Boredom, really," Spike shrugged as he walked through the store, "Sunnydale's been dead all month and I figure there's always a few stray demons hanging around in the woods I can beat up on."  
  
"Come on," Dawn pouted at Buffy, "we could always use some backup."  
  
"She's right," Willow said, "if something really is going on, we might need his help. And we haven't seen a vampire in weeks," she stuttered awkwardly as Spike silently glared silently, always sensitive about the rest of the gang taking his harmlessness for granted, "except, of course," she quickly switched subjects, "you know how trouble follows us...Sunnydale'll probably be better than ever while we're gone."  
  
Buffy glanced from Dawn to Willow curiously. She'd half-expected Dawn, who'd lately started to develop a crush on Spike, to take up for him, but Willow was a completely different matter. Willow knew how awkward dealing with the slayer-smitten vampire could be--she'd never suggest bringing him unless she really thought it was important. Buffy sighed and simply shrugged as she gave in to the three.  
  
"Alright, you're coming too, Spike," she shot him a quick glare, "but you know the rules."  
  
"Yeah, yeah," he waved his hand with boredom, "I pretend you don't exist, got it."  
  
"That just leaves one question," Xander asked, "who's driving the mystery machine?"  
  
2  
  
The sun sank behind the tree-covered hills and low sloping mountains as an old white station-wagon drove slowly through the winding single-lane roads, disappearing behind clumps of bare leafless branches and crawling up along steep rocky cliffs as the car made its way into the depths of the rugged mountain wilderness.  
  
"Didn't anybody else see the Blair Witch Project," Xander asked nervously as he peered over the steering wheel at the small barely-paved road leading still deeper into the forest, "what if there's a witch out here? I mean a bad witch, like that?"  
  
"Xander," Buffy answered from the back seat, "that was just a movie."  
  
"Yeah, besides," Willow said, her voice rising to a squeak of indignation, "that was just some Hollywood poophead making up lies about witches. Real witches don't run around woods leaving sticks hanging, they help people and do nice things like leaving," she paused, "I dunno, ribbons hanging..."  
  
"Actually, she was the real thing," Spike tossed in from the back of the station-wagon, perched behind the back seats, the rear windows covered by blankets, "good camerawork too."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Oh yeah," he said with a shrug, as though discussing the latest football game, "Blair witch, terrorizing the campers, making old hermits go nuts and off a few kiddies, that's her alright. You should meet her," he glanced down at Willow, "you might learn a spell or two. Place is a little run-down but it's right up in the mountains."  
  
Willow twisted her head out to look at the passing trees and narrow pine-covered cliffs, too flustered to speak as Spike smirked from his blanket-covered perch in the back of the station-wagon.  
  
"Well, that's not a witch," Tara said gently as she patted Willow's knee, trying to calm her down, "it's just some demon impersonating a witch, or..or probably Bigfoot..."  
  
"Nope, she's a real witch," Spike answered smugly,"what, do you think all you witches are tulip-wearing sissies? Some of you actually know how to have a good time."  
  
"Hey, we're coming up on a bridge," Xander called out as the station- wagon tumbled over an old wooden bridge spanning a deep rocky gorge. The bridge rattled beneath the wheels and Buffy looked out the window nervously, staring into the misty darkness hanging below them.  
  
"Are you sure this bridge is safe?"  
  
"Don't worry," Xander answered with a grin, "this baby is as solid as a..."  
  
"BUNNIES!!!"  
  
Everybody jumped as Anya's scream filled the car, ringing in their ears for several moments as she yanked away from the door and tugged frantically on Xander's flannel sleeve.  
  
"Three of them, out there in the woods," Anya muttered to herself in short panicked gasps, "they were just staring at me with their beady little black eyes and listening with those ears...we have to turn around right now!"  
  
"Anya, calm down," Xander sighed, then jolted as she lunged for the steering wheel, twisting the car back around, "hey, let go of the wheel," as he tried to wrestle the wheel away from her, "come on, let go...let..."  
  
"You didn't tell me there were going to be bunnies out here," Anya shouted as she tugged and fought with him over the steering wheel, "I am NOT going into any forest that has bunnies in it!"  
  
"You'll be fine," Xander tried to reassure her as he fought with her over the steering wheel, "I'll protect," and then the station-wagon rolled sideways across the road, the front half tumbling over the side of the bridge, the front wheels spinning in the air as the engine died, the car dangling halfway over the edge of the chasm.  
  
3  
  
"Why am I in the back seat," Anya pouted from the back of the car as they continued down the dirt road, "you're my boyfriend, I should get dibs on the front seat! Besides, the oldest person in the car always gets to sit in the front seat. Everybody over a thousand, raise your hands. See, dibs are all mine. My dibs."  
  
"Trust me, honey, It's for your own good," Xander said as Buffy sat beside him, and he whispered to her, "and ours."  
  
"How deep in the woods are we," Dawn asked, glancing nervously out the window, "I mean, if the car wrecked again and we got stuck out here, we could be lost for days. We could starve or..."  
  
"We'll be fine, Dawn," Buffy turned around to reassure her little sister, "it's just a camping trip."  
  
"Well, I'd be fine anyway," Spike remarked, "dunno about the rest of you, though."  
  
"You wouldn't dare," Buffy snarled, and then a confused look crossed her face, her head tilting, "actually, you couldn't anyway."  
  
"Let's see, bad headache or starve to death, bad headache or starve to death...oh wait, that's easy," Spike answered, his voice lowering in a decisive, threatening tone, "bad headache," he paused a moment as the rest of the gang stared into the blanket-cave he'd set up, and he continued in an exasperated tone, "oh come on, you humans would do it in a second. Donner party anyone? Or that movie with the airplane, whatsitcalled..."  
  
"Oh yeah, Alive. I liked that movie," Dawn answered with a smile, trying to be helpful, and then her face slowly sank into a frowning mix of dismay and revulsion as she realized what he meant, "oh."  
  
"Nobody's eating anybody," Xander called out into the car firmly, "because we're here."  
  
The car slowly followed along a winding dirt road through the hills and the woods suddenly opened into a small clearing filled with rotting leaves and twisted bare trees. Xander pulled the car in front of an old wooden cabin crouched in the middle of the hollow and the group began to crawl out of the car.  
  
"Alright," Xander shuddered as she looked around, "this couldn't be creepier."  
  
Dismal gray clouds covered the sky, a faint crimson glow hovering over the western horizon as they looked around at the black leafless trees and the warped wooden planks of the dark cabin, then at a small workshed perched behind the cabin, almost hidden by the overgrown bushes and weeds. Spike slowly reached his fingers out through the back of the station-wagon, testing the air for sunlight, then hopped out onto his feet.  
  
"Does anybody else feel anything," Buffy said nervously, looking around at the empty forest.  
  
"Like what," Willow asked.  
  
"Like there's something here," she said softly, "like we're being watched..."  
  
Invisible eyes stared out of the forest at the group, a low rumbling chant of primordial hatred silently filling the air as it began to tumble down the hill, rushing over the damp festering leaves and snapping through twigs and branches as it glided over the hood of the station-wagon toward Buffy.  
  
Buffy felt something snatching at her neck and she suddenly whirled around, grabbing a gnarled hand and dropping to her knees as she flipped the creature over her shoulder onto its back.  
  
"Giles!"  
  
Xander and Willow bent to the ground to help Giles back to his feet while Buffy glanced around in shock, then noticed his glasses lying on the ground and bent down to pick them up. Giles rubbed his face wearily as Dawn helped dust off his tweed jacket, then took his glasses back from Buffy and put them back on.  
  
"I'm sorry," Buffy stammered, her colorless face blushing as she realized he was alright, "Giles, I thought you were...I mean, I felt like we were being watched, and then...I thought..."  
  
"Yes, well," he shook his head, trying to get his bearings, "that's alright--there might be a reason for your instincts as a slayer being heightened in this...in this place," then he tilted his head as he came to his senses, "but what are all of you doing here anyway?"  
  
"We were," Tara said after looking around at the silent group, "going on a...camping trip..."  
  
"Right," Willow nodded, "and we saw your car while we were camping..."  
  
"Doing tough manly things," Xander offered, "like hunting large hairy animals and eating them..."  
  
"Except for bunnies," Anya said quickly in a panic, "we leave the bunnies alone..."  
  
"And so," Buffy concluded with an innocent smile, "we just stopped by to say hi."  
  
"Scooby gang got worried and followed you," Spike said with a cock- eyed backward glance at the rest of the group as they suddenly glared at him, "I got bored and wanted some fresh air."  
  
"While we were on," Dawn said, her voice sinking as she finally gave up, "our camping trip?"  
  
"I see," Giles answered, still rubbing his forehead with his fingertips, "well, as long as you're here, I should explain what's going on. I'm meeting with Annie Knowby, the daughter of an old friend of mine, Raymond Knowby, but," he gestured toward the two cars, his convertible and the station-wagon, "she doesn't seem to have arrived yet. Professor Knowby is supposed to be at this cabin, but we want to make sure he's alright."  
  
"Is he in the cabin," Buffy asked.  
  
"I don't know," Giles answered, "I haven't checked. I've only been here a few minutes."  
  
"We should check it out then," she answered as she turned toward the cabin.  
  
They walked slowly through the piles of damp leaves and half-rotted twigs, the porch groaning under their weight as they climbed slowly up the steps, the porch-swing on the right side of the porch rocking softly as though invisible children were kicking it back and forth. Buffy shuddered and tried to put the thought out of her mind, then noticed the plain wooden front-door--and the two holes smashed through it. She looked back at Giles with concern, then grabbed the doorknob and pushed it open.  
  
The cabin lay drenched in darkness and she groped alongside the door, finding a light switch and flipping it on. A dim flickering electric bulb illuminated the living room and Buffy glanced back at the others.  
  
"Electricity still works," she said nervously with a shrug, then continued forward.  
  
The living-room was obviously the greater part of the cabin, a large room with a bare wooden floor covered by oriental rugs. A writing desk and wooden chair sat in one corner, topped by notebooks and a large tape- recorder, and she looked around at the rest of the room. A fireplace sat against the right wall of the living room and a mounted deer's head stared out from above the fireplace with black marble eyes. An old green couch lay pressed against the adjoining wall and a rocking chair sat in the middle of the room. She glanced down at the floor and noticed a trap-door built into the floorboards, fastened by chains and a thick padlock. The cellar.  
  
"Now this is what I'm talking about," Spike said eagerly as he picked up a double-barrel shotgun from the couch and studied it closely, "a twelve- gauge double-barreled Remington, made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Walnut stock, cobalt-blue steel...and a hair trigger."  
  
"Spike," Buffy said firmly, hand outstretched, "give me the gun."  
  
"Are you joking," Spike scoffed, "go find your own! This is MY boomstick!"  
  
"Fine," she said, rolling her eyes, "you can't do anything with it anyway. Besides," she said as she bent down to pick up a woodaxe leaning against the wall, "I've got an axe. Cooler than a gun anyday."  
  
"You wish," Spike taunted, then paused as Buffy looked around, feeling a chill running along her spine, as though something were watching her. She turned around and noticed a bulk propped against one of the corners, the dim shadows covering it, keeping her from making out anything more than its size--but she felt her heart jumping into her throat at the size of it. She slowly walked forward, listening to the floorboards creak beneath her shoes, and she gradually became aware of another sound: flies swarming around the corner. She grabbed a pair of shoes sticking out of the darkness and dragged them forward, covering her mouth as a sudden stench filled her nostrils.  
  
"Giles," she choked, twisting her head away from the sight, "I think we've found Annie."  
  
4  
  
Spike grunted as he stabbed the earthen floor of the cabin's fruit cellar, shovelling another handful of moldy dirt from the coffin-deep hole he and Giles had dug into the basement floor. He glanced back up at the thin shafts of light pouring through the open trap-door above, listening for a moment to the rest of the gang as they explored the back rooms of the cabin and talking in hushed whispers, then he turned to Giles.  
  
"That's fine," Giles gasped with a nod, leaning on his shovel, "that's deep enough."  
  
Spike shook his head with bewilderment then shrugged and rolled Annie's body into the hole, shovelling the dirt across her back. He patted down the few inches of damp earth covering her with the back of the shovel and shook his head with dismay as he realized that the dagger sticking out of her back could still be seen.  
  
"That's barely covering her," Spike complained, and then he gave a knowing look to Giles, "but then, you didn't really bring her down here just to bury her, did you?"  
  
"Spike," Giles answered wearily, "this isn't your concern."  
  
"Like hell it isn't," Spike growled, "I helped you bury her. I'm here just like the rest of you and whatever's going on in this cabin affects me just like it does you. The scoobies might be content to stay in the dark, but I'm not, not when I'm not involved. Now why did we bury her down here, why not outside?"  
  
"Alright," Giles sighed, shaking his head, "how old did Annie look to you?"  
  
"I dunno," Spike answered, thinking about it, "twenty-two, twenty- three maybe?"  
  
"How long do you think she was dead?"  
  
"A few days, maybe a week. No more than that."  
  
"Right. The last time I saw Annie Knowby was more than eight years ago."  
  
"Must have not been too torn up over it then," Spike shrugged.  
  
"She was like a daughter to me," Giles said through clenched teeth, then relaxed, "but that's not the point. The point is that when I saw her eight years ago, she looked just like she did now: twenty-two years old."  
  
Spike lit a cigarette and took a long deep breath, then started talking again.  
  
"But she's still fresh," Spike said softly, puzzled, "so you think she went vamp. One problem with that: we don't leave bodies. We're pretty handy that way, no mess and all."  
  
"No," Giles answered, thinking, "I don't think she turned into a vampire. I think Annie really did die eight years ago, it would make sense. That's probably when it all began."  
  
"But she didn't rot...and, wait a minute, you got that phone call from her," Spike said and he looked up slowly, his eyes gleaming with sudden realization, "I was right, you weren't really worried about burying her at all. You brought her down her so she'd be locked up, just in case..."  
  
"That's enough," Giles whispered sharply, "it's just a precaution. Until we know why I was called out here and who or what made the call, we can't take any chances."  
  
5  
  
Willow paced back and forth across the living room, flipping through some of the yellowed pages of the notebooks she'd found in the writing desk, shaking her head with frustration as she finally walked back to the desk and sat down, flopping the booklet back onto the desk as she sighed.  
  
"I can't make out anything in these notes. It has something to do with an expedition to Kandar, but nothing else makes any sense...and his handwriting's terrible."  
  
"What about that tape-recorder," Dawn said, leaning back on the couch as she half-heartedly studied one of the notebooks herself, flipping it upside-down and right-side up, "why don't you try playing it?"  
  
"Yeah, maybe," Willow answered reluctantly as she glanced to the bulky machine, "we've read everything here, so I guess that's the only thing left," and she pushed the button, the machine whizzing to life.  
  
"...recorded here," a refined elderly voice spoke from the machine, "are the phonetic pronunciations of the text I've managed to translate so far."  
  
"The professor," Tara asked as she walked in from the kitchen, fingers twisted through the handles of three mugs of hot chocolate, handing one to Dawn and then sitting the other two on the writing desk.  
  
"Yeah," Willow answered, listening intently to the tape.  
  
"Kandar," the scholarly voice began, "ames trovyn hasarta..."  
  
"What language is that," Dawn asked curiously, perking up from the couch.  
  
"I'm not sure," Willow answered as she leaned toward the machine.  
  
Deep within the heart of the forest, the faint sound of crickets and birds began to slowly fade, leaving only deathly silence in the branch- tangled depths of the woods. The trees slowly began to fade, the deep crimson branches and tree-trunks fading pale gray, while leaves tumbled and whirled down from the sky...  
  
"Tendyr," the tape continued, "manaph mys hasaan-sobar..."  
  
"It sounds like it might be Sumerian," Tara offered.  
  
"Yeah," Willow answered softly, "but the syntax is all wrong. I think some of it predates Sumerian."  
  
"That's not possible," Tara muttered, confused, "nothing's older than Sumerian."  
  
"And the verbs, the phonetics...it's not just older, it's more advanced than Sumerian."  
  
Clouds rolled across the darkening sky as though answering the tape's summons, dark boiling storms sweeping over the horizon as the distant roar of thunder echoed across the forest. A rising wind howled through the branches and, somewhere deep within the shadowy darkness of the woods, the leaf-covered ground began to shudder. A faint crimson light began to glow from beneath the dried leaves and wisps of fog began to rise from the ground, as though slumbering spirits were emerging from the very roots of the trees.  
  
"Kandar!"  
  
"Willow," Tara said nervously as Willow listened to the tape, trying to decipher the words.  
  
The wind howled and seemed to form words, a groaning chorus of voices formed by the creaking tree-branches, as a flock of ravens scattered across the sky, shrieking as they fled the woods. Distant flashes of heat lightning flickered across the horizon and the sudden roar of thunder shook the cabin. Twisting fog filled the depths of the forest, rising up from the glowing cracks in the earth, and seemed to take grotesque boiling shapes as it rolled between the tree-trunks, engulfing the isolated cabin.  
  
"Kandar!"  
  
"Willow," Tara screamed, trying desperately to get her attention, "that's not a text, it's a spell!"  
  
Glass shattered all around them and Tara ran over to the couch to shield Dawn as Willow ducked, all the windows in the cabin suddenly imploding at once, shards of glass flying through the rooms and smashing across the floor. The front door flew open and Buffy, Xander and Anya came running into the cabin, still holding the sleeping bags and backpacks they'd been unpacking. Spike poked his head up from the cellar and looked around with mild, detached curiosity, then he leaped into the cabin and out of the way as Giles rushed up the stairs.  
  
"That," Willow stammered, clutching her arms around her chest, "was definitely a spell."  
  
6  
  
"I didn't know it was this close to sunset," Giles muttered, shaking his head as he tossed the last sleeping bag into the back of the old station-wagon and looked back up at the crimson rim of the setting sun shining through the distant mountains and bare treetops, "forget about the rest of it, we're leaving now!"  
  
"What was on the tape," Willow asked as he opened the car doors and began ushering the confused group into the car. He pushed her into the back seat and slid into the driver's seat, starting the engine.  
  
"Probably an incantation from that damned book," he answered under his breath, "at any rate, we're not staying here to find out," as he pulled the car away from the cabin.  
  
"Giles," Buffy asked nervously from the front seat beside him, "I don't get this. We've fought vampires, demons, stopped more apocalypses than I can even remember...whatever that spell did, can't we handle it?"  
  
Giles didn't answer, but instead stepped on the gas, the white station-wagon tearing down the dirt road, ripping through hanging branches, wheels skidding through the dirt as the car raced through the forest and down the dirt road leading to the bridge.  
  
"Okay," Buffy murmured to herself in surprise, staring out at the rushing tunnel of branches and rolling mountains, then suddenly screamed, "Giles, look out!"  
  
The whine of the skidding brakes filled the ear and Giles twisted the car sideways as it neared the chasm that separated the main road from the dirt trails of the forest. The car screeched as it slowly slid to a stop, and Buffy raised her hand to everyone else, silently gesturing for them to stay in the car, then stepped out of the car into a sea of rolling, blowing mist, staring around at the forest and the road before her eyes adjusted to the gloom.  
  
She looked at the bridge leading over the chasm, then shook her head and looked again.  
  
Something had smashed it to pieces. The bent rails and steel girders reached upward into the darkening sky like the outstretched talons of a giant's claw and she looked across the wide gaping chasm, shaking her head as she tried to figure out what could have completely destroyed a bridge that stretched over at least half a mile of empty air over the chasm. Her first thoughts were ridiculous: Godzilla, King Kong, Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man...  
  
The scorching rays of the dying sun faded behind the mountains and it rose up from the chasm, howling and roaring in a silent chant of primeval words that were never meant to be heard by living creatures. It reached through the bent girders and smashed through dangling wooden planks, its prey standing in paralyzing terror as it swept over the half-frozen mud toward them.  
  
"Drive," Buffy shouted as she leapt into the front seat, as Giles fumbled with the ignition, "NOW!"  
  
The car roared to life and quickly swung around, wheels spinning through the festering leaves as it tore back through the overgrown road toward the cabin. Howls and groaning chanting voices filled the air behind them and Giles slammed his foot into the gas pedal, the car smashing through tangled branches and tree-limbs as drops of red liquid splattered across the windshield.  
  
"Is that," Dawn asked from the back seat, "no, that can't be, we didn't hit anything but branches..."  
  
"Giles," Buffy screamed, "watch out!"  
  
A thick gnarled tree-trunk creaked sideways across the road and for a moment Buffy thought it was falling, knocked down by the unspeakable thing chasing them. Then, as the trunk bent and twisted down like a serpent and the bark split open to reveal giant glistening human eyes, she realized the truth.  
  
Giles swung the car to the right and it squeezed between the wall of trees and the tip of the living tree's flailing branches. Sharp wooden claws smashed through the back windows and Willow screamed as the branches curled around her left arm, their sharp tips digging into her skin and drawing thin streaks of blood, the tree glaring into the car with its gleaming eyes, before the car finally tore loose from the tree, the sprawling, spidery branch ripping from the snarling tree-trunk in a shower of blood.  
  
The station-wagon finally broke free of the waving, clutching tunnel of living trees-branches and hurtled toward the cabin, sliding to a sudden stop as Giles killed the engine and pulled open all the car doors, yanking each one of the group out of the car and then hurtling onto the porch to unlock the cabin. Buffy and Spike jogged up to help look for the keys, Willow and Tara staying by Dawn while Anya and Xander stared out into the twilight.  
  
It reached out of the woods and swept over the tire-tracks toward the car and the people huddled around the cabin, a whirling storm of airborne leaves and fluttering twigs twisting around it as it neared the cabin and its cowering prey. It sensed a familiar presence and, among the group, one whose aura flickered differently than the others, a kindred darkness within her...but still as nothing compared to its darkness...  
  
"Oh no," Anya groaned as she watched it emerge between the thrashing branches, "not again."  
  
"Huh," Xander asked, and then he felt something grab his arm and yank him backward. Buffy threw him through the open doorway and then rushed back out into the night, making sure everyone made it through the door into the cabin before finally slamming the door shut and bolting it, amid the sounds of a roaring, frustrated tempest of dead rasping voices dying away into a steady howling wind outside.  
  
7  
  
"It's only been a few hours since I translated and spoke aloud," Professor Knowby said on the old tape recorder, his voice trembling slightly, "the first of the demon-resurrection passages from the Book of the Dead. May God forgive me for what I've unleashed upon this Earth…"  
  
"Alright," Buffy demanded as Giles turned off the recording, "what is going on? What is that thing out there, why were trees attacking us, and what was that weird tape-recording all about?"  
  
"I don't know the details yet," Giles stammered, "but the recording was an incantation from a book I helped the professor unearth," he paused for a moment, "Necronomicon Ex Mortis...Book of the Dead."  
  
"The WHAT," Buffy shouted, "god, don't you ever read any nice boring non-demony books?! I'm serious, when we get back I am going to get you started on Harry Potter!"  
  
"Yes, well," Giles answered, rubbing the back of his neck, "Knowby was always a skeptic, he didn't believe in the legends himself. I never imagined he'd try to use the book, much less record his attempt."  
  
"What is it, exactly," Willow asked guiltily. She leaned within the kitchen doorway and figetted nervously as Giles carefully wiped his glasses and adjusted them atop his nose.  
  
"Long before man," Giles said slowly as he recited from memory, "the Dark Ones trod the ways of darkness. Their maliciousness was great upon the Earth and all Creation bowed beneath Their might."  
  
"Sounds like Shakespeare," Spike remarked as he checked the windows, "after he went vamp."  
  
"After he what," Willow asked, eyes wide in shock.  
  
"It's not written by Shakespeare," Giles answered with a quick glare at Spike, "it's the only line from the book that's managed to survive to the present day. The book has been lost and found throughout history and only that one line has ever been recorded...only the vaguest rumors surround what else is written in it..."  
  
"We'll settle for rumors," Tara replied.  
  
"It comes from a time when spirits ruled the Earth," Giles answered, sitting down at the end of the couch and cleaning his glasses yet again as he continued, "when demon-haunted forests covered the land and the seas ran red with blood. The Dark Ones used that blood to ink the book and they bound it with human flesh."  
  
"Okay, we're dealing with these Dark Ones," Buffy answered, "what do we know about them, other than that they're old, they're dark, and they think people make good bookbinding tools?"  
  
"We know they've been dead for thousands of years," Giles said, rubbing his brow, "the Dark Ones lost their hold on this world and now exist only as a kind of composite entity lingering in the darkness between worlds, comprised of all the souls they've taken over the centuries.""  
  
"The book is a relic of their extinct race," he continued, "it contains prophecies, funerary incantations, and demon-resurrection passages. It was, according to legend at least, the passageway between this world and the evil worlds beyond."  
  
"Let's add this up," Xander said as he lit the fireplace, "demon- resurrection, evil worlds beyond, and an evil soul-stealing entity lurking in the outer darkness. So your friend the professor was looking for this because...no, wait," he slapped his forehead in mock realization, "he wouldn't have been looking for it, because that would be nuts!"  
  
"He wasn't really looking for the book," Giles answered, " Knowby led an expedition to the ruins of Kandar eight years ago. He was an old friend and colleague and so I helped with some of the preliminary research. There was no reason to believe that the Book of the Dead would be anyway near Kandar, but he found it buried in a secret vault beneath the main castle. I tried to convince him that the book might be dangerous, but he didn't believe in the legends..."  
  
Something whizzed through the air and Buffy leaped sideways with a scream, knocking Giles to the ground as a meat-cleaver flew forward, the blade stabbing deep into the wall, the wood handle still shuddering. Buffy lifted her head up from the floor and looked up across the room, toward the kitchen. Willow stood at the doorway, her head turned downward, her arms tensed and trembling, as everybody slowly looked toward her.  
  
"Willow," Buffy asked nervously.  
  
Willow suddenly lifted her face and Buffy heard Tara scream in shock from the other side of the room. Willow leaped upward, clothes flapping as she hovered in the center of the room, limbs convulsing as she twisted her head left and right, her dark bright eyes replaced by blind white orbs, her face pale and cracked with black spidery veins as her thin dried hair fluttered around her shoulders.  
  
"Oh my god," Buffy whispered, "what happened to her?" 


	3. Chapter 2: Dead of Night

Buffy vs. the Evil Dead  
  
by Demon-Fighter Ash  
  
Chapter 2: Dead of Night  
  
1  
  
"We are the spirits of the Necronomicon," Willow said in a growling echoing voice that seemed neither male nor female, just demonic, her body twisting and flailing like a puppet as she floated above the living room and stared down at the stunned group with her blind white eyes, "the things that were and shall soon be once more. Why did you come to this place? Already your precious Willow's soul belongs to us!"  
  
The flapping wraith suddenly swept downward, her shoes brushing the floor as she glided through the cabin toward Dawn, writhing snake-like fingers outstretched. Buffy jumped up from the floor and darted across the room toward her friend, grabbing her around the shoulders from behind and trying to knock her down.  
  
"Not good enough," the thing giggled as it twisted its head around its shoulders, its neck cracking as its head swivelled all the way around to face her, "you'll have to do better than that, Buffy."  
  
It quickly snapped its arms outward, breaking her hold, and grabbed her neck in one hand, lifting her up from the ground. Buffy looked down into Willow's hideously distorted face and suddenly felt herself flying back through the air, the living room wall slamming into her back. She lifted herself onto her hands and knees, shaking her head in disbelief. Willow was never this strong--even vampires and demons weren't this strong.  
  
She'd expected the demon to come charging at her, but instead she saw it turning slowly around, its back toward her as it looked at Dawn. Her fingernails scraped against the floorboards as she watched it stalking toward its prey, its shoes clicking across the floor as it cornered the petrified young girl.  
  
"Come here, Dawnie," its giggling voice called out mockingly, "it's just good old Willow..."  
  
A black-leather blur flew across the room and Buffy saw Spike tackle Willow and knock her to the floor; the possessed girl kicked Spike away and he rolled across the carpet, grabbing the shotgun in one hand as the demon hovered back onto its feet.  
  
"No," Buffy screamed out, "that's still Willow!"  
  
Spike jumped back to his feet as the creature rushed forward and he flipped the gun around, knocking her across the cheek with the handle, then flinching as the thing calmly twisted its hideous face back toward him.  
  
"Come on Willow," he said under his breath, "snap out of it!"  
  
She simply cocked her head at him with a giggle, her blind white eyes staring into his for a moment, then she raised her hand, her fingernails twisted into thick claws. Spike jerked away as she slashed forward, then cried out in pain as her nails tore through his left cheek, leaving deep gouging cuts along the side of his face.  
  
"Alright then," he groaned as blood dribbled along his face and chin, "we'll do it your way."  
  
He slammed the butt of the shotgun into her chin, knocking her head back, and swung the barrel into her ribs. Buffy lifted up from the ground and whirled toward the possessed girl as she flew back up into the air, leaping up and jump-kicking the thing back onto the ground as Giles and Xander yanked the cellar door open.  
  
"Over here," Xander shouted.  
  
Buffy nodded and began kicking the growling creature backward, matching each of its charges with another kick or punch, forcing it steadily backward through the room until it finally stood on the edge of the open trap-door; it snarled, its dry mummified skin cracking as its face contorted with rage, and Buffy jumped up, twisting through the air as she jump-kicked it back one last step, sending it tumbling down the basement steps. Xander slammed the door shut and he and Giles quickly began fastening the chains over the planks, padlocking the cellar shut. The monster pushed and beat at the door for a few moments, then the room slowly subsided into dead silence.  
  
2  
  
"Last night Henrietta tried to," the professor's recorded voice paused for a moment, "kill me. I know now that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of bodily dismemberment."  
  
"Giles," Buffy demanded as she collapsed onto the couch, "just tell me exactly what the spell he recorded did. What is it we're up against?"  
  
"I'm still not completely sure," he answered as he paused the tape and wiped his glasses, "but I believe it awakened the spirits of the book and gave them license to possess this forest...and every living thing in it."  
  
"In other words," Xander said glumly, "us."  
  
"These spirits usually lie dormant within the forests and dark bowers of man's domain," Giles rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on, "but they're never truly dead. The book is said to have the power to awaken them and if the person who awakens them doesn't know how to control them...then..."  
  
"Okay," Buffy asked anxiously, "so how do we control them?"  
  
"You can't," Anya answered impatiently as she paced nervously in front of the fireplace, "that's the whole point of it. That book was never meant for the living and it just shows how suicidally dumb people are that you keep on digging that thing up and trying to translate it!"  
  
"You've seen this before," Xander asked gently, "haven't you?"  
  
"Just once," she answered, staring at the floor as she continued to pace, "but it was enough. I've been trying to forget about it ever since."  
  
"When," Giles asked quicky, "what happened?"  
  
"It was a German village along the Rhine, in the Black Forest," Anya whispered as she sat onto the couch, gripping her knees tightly, "there are creatures that bring death and chaos, that people spend their lives afraid of. You call them demons," she looked up at the group, "well this is what demons spend their lives afraid of."  
  
"Go on."  
  
"It was 970 AD. They found the book buried beneath a cathedral. The bishop, he thought...I don't know what he thought, but he tried reading some of the passages. It began that night. The forest changed, all the animals vanished and the trails leading out of the village just disappeared. Then people started being possessed. It came out of the woods and started infecting people, changing them one by one...it turned them into deadites."  
  
"What's a deadite," Dawn asked, "sounds like a Grateful Dead fanatic."  
  
"It's what people become when they... when they change. Like that," she gestured toward the trap-door, then stared into the fire as she began again, "it didn't matter how many of them the villagers killed, it just kept taking over more and more of them. In a few hours it'd changed over half the village. It even got into the trees."  
  
"So it was over fast," Spike asked as he glanced out the window and turned back toward the room, holding a damp folded washcloth against his gouged cheek.  
  
"No," Anya answered, a haunted look in her eyes as she spoke softly, "it wasn't over fast. They played with the survivors, taunting them, trying to break them, to drive them insane or make them kill themselves. It could have been over in minutes, but it wanted to make them suffer. The night...the night lasted for days..."  
  
"The night lasted," Giles started to ask, confused, then shook his head, "I've never read about anything like this."  
  
"You wouldn't have," she said, shrugging, "there's never been anybody left to tell it."  
  
"Oh," Giles muttered in muted surprise, "well then...please, continue."  
  
"When the morning came, everyone was dead. The forest had swallowed up the whole town. It was like the village had never even existed. The only one who knew what'd happened was me."  
  
"Where were you," Dawn asked, biting her lip nervously.  
  
"I was hiding in the church rafters," Anya answered, "this thing was way out of my league."  
  
"So where are these demons," Buffy asked, frustrated, "why haven't we seen any of them? I mean, we've seen evil trees and we saw Willow, and we saw that thing outside, but we haven't seen them. We find them, I kick demon-butt, we go home. Good plan?"  
  
"It's not that simple," Giles answered after a moment of silence, "their bodies died thousands of years ago, they've already been killed. The recording awakened bodiless spirits and essentially gave them permission to use our bodies instead. They really," he paused, rubbing the back of his neck, "don't have butts to kick."  
  
"And it's worse than that," Anya replied, "when the book summons them, it leaves a kind of window open between worlds. The longer this goes on, the more like their world this forest will get. It starts with the trees, but it'll get worse...by the time the village was destroyed, reality and nightmares had become the same thing."  
  
"But what do they want," Tara asked, "how do we stop them?"  
  
"According to Kandarian legends, they want to live again, to bring the age of animals to an end and make the world the way it was before," Giles paused, "when they ruled over it. Right now only their spirits are awakened, and they're confined to this forest, for this one night. They can only regain their bodies and truly return to our world during specific celestial alignments which unlock the gate between the two worlds...alignments that only occur once every three thousand years."  
  
"And let me guess," Buffy sighed, "tonight just happens to be their lucky night."  
  
"Actually," Giles said, adjusting his glasses, "it's not. The last alignment was in the year 730 AD and there won't be another one for another two thousand years or so."  
  
"That's a switch," Buffy said, blinking with confusion, "a once-in-a- millennium apocalypse and we don't have anything to do with it. So if they can't come back as flesh, what is it they want?"  
  
"They want us dead," Anya answered impatiently, "don't any of you get it? They hate living things. We woke them up and now they want to kill us. As soon as we're all dead, everything'll turn back to normal. Except we'll be dead. Have I mentioned the part about us being dead yet?"  
  
"Great," Xander said loudly, exasperated and frightened, "so we have to die to get them to leave?"  
  
"But there is one legend," Giles said as he started flipping through the professor's spiral-notebook, "of a warrior from the sky who defeated the evil at Kandar in 1300 AD. The Book of the Dead foretold his coming and he was allegedly the one who buried the book in the vault."  
  
"Maybe we can summon this warrior," Tara asked, "with some sort of spell?"  
  
"I don't think so," Giles answered, shaking his head with dismay, "all the notes seem to indicate that this 'hero from the sky' was human. Whoever he was, he lived and died centuries ago."  
  
"Or maybe," Xander started, "he was just some modern guy who went back in time, smashed a few deadite skulls, partied with some medieval babes and then came back once he was done," he glanced around as everyone else stared speechlessly at him, "alright, that was dumb, even I admit it."  
  
"But if he was human and he beat them," Buffy said, "then they've gotta have some weakness, something we've missed. Assuming nobody drops from the sky, what else do we have?"  
  
"There's probably a fairly decent chainsaw out in that workshed," Spike said as he walked across the living room, and he suddenly collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. Buffy rose from the couch and grabbed Dawn as the younger girl tried to rush to him. He rolled over onto his back, black spidery lines twisting and spreading beneath his skin, erupting from the gashes on his cheek and writhing like serpents throughout his face.  
  
"Spike," Dawn screamed out.  
  
"Xander, get the shotgun," Buffy called out across the room, "we may have to..."  
  
"No," Spike groaned, his voice still human as he staggered onto his feet, still clutching his stomach, "I'm alright, I think," he took a few steps forward and fell down again, catching himself on the arm of the sofa as Buffy backed away from him, still holding Dawn by the wrist.  
  
"Are you sure," she asked, and gave a sharp sudden gasp as he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. His flesh had gone even more white than it'd been before and his eyes had faded into clear white orbs staring out at her. For the first time she truly realized she was looking at a walking, speaking corpse and she took another step back, tightening her grip on Dawn's wrist as she began to reach for the axe.  
  
"I think so," he groaned, his voice still normal despite his grotesque features, "I feel them inside me, but they can't get a grip on me, they keep slipping," he managed a grin through a sudden burst of pain, "I think they're looking for my soul."  
  
She nodded slowly and began to let go of the axe, "can you fight them?"  
  
Spike smiled weakly and managed to stand up straight, his face pale and slightly shrivelled, his eyes blank white balls deep within purple hollows, and answered, "yeah, I think so; they're confused, they can't quite get a hold of me. I might not look pretty, but I'll be okay."  
  
A harsh rasping voice answered him from the fireplace.  
  
"You'll be dead!"  
  
Everybody suddenly turned back toward the fireplace and the cracked scratchy voice that had answered Spike, seeing nothing but flickering shadows and flames as Anya rolled back from the fireplace with a small panicked shriek. Something snorted within the darkness above the fire and Buffy glanced upward, groaning in horror at the thing staring down from the wall at them.  
  
The mounted deer's head had changed, the face shrivelled into a flesh- draped skull, the black marbles set in its sockets melting into blank white eyes staring blindly at them as the head yanked left and right against the wall, its neck cracking and popping loudly as it looked about the room at each of them, its snout twisted into a grin.  
  
"We'll peel your soulless husk," it cackled to Spike before turning its dead gaze to the rest of them, "and then we'll feast on the souls of your friends," its words dying away into mad wheezing laughter. The group stared up at the cackling, bellowing stuffed head as it laughed and twisted its neck, looking down from its mounted board as it snorted and howled at them, its snout open and its mouth gaping with shrieks of hacking laughter.  
  
The cold steel twin barrels of a shotgun suddenly pressed up against the undead thing's chin and the deer's eyes rolled down to see Spike standing below it, his own blank white eyes meeting it as he nodded to the thing.  
  
"Feast on this."  
  
He pulled the trigger and the deer's head exploded in a shower of red and black juices, quivering bits of flesh and pulsing half-crawling organs raining down into the room, covering the group and splattering across the floorboards. Dawn suddenly tore away from Buffy's grip and ran into the bathroom, groaning and coughing as she threw up. The rest of the group sank silently into their seats, staring down at the floor as Spike grabbed the blood-drenched mounted neck and, leaning through the living-room window, hurled it out into the darkness.  
  
3  
  
Mists rolled through the dead trees and around the cabin in a rushing torrent, engulfing the clearing around the cabin in a thick ghostly tide of fog as a howling wind battered the windows and rattled the shingles, as though it were trying to rip the cabin from the ground like a weed. Within the cabin, the group sat silently around the fireplace and glanced furtively at the cellar door. After several silent, motionless minutes Xander cleared his throat.  
  
"I don't get it," he said, "that thing was stuffed. How could it have all that...in it?"  
  
Nobody answered him. Giles finally glanced up and looked slowly around at the rest of them.  
  
"The spirits are changing things, physically. The woods, the trees, anything they possess--they're actually mutating the structure of whatever they inhabit. The longer this goes on, the more they'll change whatever they're possessing into...whatever it is they were when they were alive."  
  
"That means I'm being changed too," Spike muttered softly, looking into the mirror at his bone-white face, cracked black veins and blind white eyes, shaking his head, "from the inside out."  
  
"And Willow too," Tara said with a nod, tears in her eyes, "it sounds like almost disease."  
  
"And the longer it goes on," Giles answered, "the harder it'll be to change things back.  
  
"Isn't there any way to cure them," Dawn asked.  
  
"Oh that's easy," Anya called out hopefully from the fireplace, "you chop them up. And then you keep chopping them up into little bits so they won't have anything to possess. That always cures them."  
  
"That's not an option," Buffy said firmly, her voice growing louder, "we are not going to kill Willow, do you hear me? We are NOT killing anybody, we're going to find some other way to fix this."  
  
"That's what the villagers said too," Anya sighed with frustration, "at first."  
  
She suddenly whirled away from the group and sat down by the fireplace. Xander shrugged apologetically to the rest of the group, lost for words, and sat down beside her, reaching his arm around her as she fidgeted.  
  
"She might be right, slayer," Spike said reluctantly. She suddenly looked up at him.  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"When we were fighting Willow," he said slowly, "I felt fine. The chip didn't go off once."  
  
"Maybe the chip just got confused," she countered desperately, "with all that fighting, and people being thrown around maybe it just," she sighed and shook her head weakly, "you said this thing controls the forest," she asked, turning to Giles, "but what if we got Willow out of the forest? Wouldn't it still be stuck here?"  
  
"In theory, yes," he answered, "but you saw what happened when we drove to the bridge. You'd have to get through the trees, and then there's that...thing...roaming around out there."  
  
"Spike," Buffy turned toward the vampire as he stared out the window at the creaking, leafless forest and the vague shapeless shadows twisting between the trees in the distance, "could you make it out? Look for some other way around the bridge and come back for us when you've found something?"  
  
"Wait a minute," Xander shouted as he stood up, "you're trusting HIM to come back for US?!"  
  
"No she's not," Spike growled, then looked over at Buffy, "because I'm not going out there."  
  
"Why not," she demanded, "we know they can't possess you!"  
  
"Look out the window, slayer," he answered, glancing out himself as she looked out into the darkness, at the swaying tree branches, "that whole forest is one great big wooden stake with my name on it. They might not be able to possess me, but if they want they can make damn sure I don't come back to help the lot of you."  
  
"Yeah, I guess so," she answered in a disappointed, half-apologetic tone, "what about sunrise?"  
  
"That might work," Giles answered, his voice rising with hope for the first time, "these spirits are only active at night, they become dormant during the day. If we can just make it until morning..."  
  
"Giles," Anya interrupted, her voice worried but not at all surprised, "look at the clock..."  
  
Giles looked up and Buffy looked up too as she heard a low despairing groan escape his lips. The antique pendulum clock hanging on the wall had stopped ticking and, as she watched it now, the black arrow-tipped hands began to spin backward, counting down through the hours until finally it began to chime. She closed her eyes and listened to the bells, counting each one, feeling her knees wobble beneath her. Six chimes. Just one hour after sunset. A guttural cackling voice began to laugh wildly at them from within the locked cellar.  
  
"I told you," Anya muttered under her breath, "the night lasted for days."  
  
"So where's this book," Buffy complained, "if that's what's causing all this, where is it? Why haven't we seen it? Bound in skin, written in blood, shouldn't be too hard to miss."  
  
"I think," Xander said reluctantly, "this might be it."  
  
He tossed a charred, blackened lump of burnt paper and leather onto the desk as the others rushed over to see it. Giles gingerly lifted it with two fingers, then grabbed it in both hands and started flipping through the charred pages, trying to make out any of them. He sighed and dropped it back onto the table and Buffy shuddered as, for a moment, she made out the stretched-flat features of a human face beneath the blistered leather cover.  
  
"I found it in the fireplace, before I started the fire," Xander said as Giles shook his head.  
  
"Knowby must've been desperate," Giles said softly, "burning the book was his last recourse."  
  
"Or something else burnt the book," Buffy replied, "to make sure he couldn't send them back."  
  
"You see, this is why I'm against book-burnings," Xander said angrily, "nothing but trouble!"  
  
"At any rate," Giles shook his head, "it's useless to us now."  
  
Something suddenly smashed against the wooden stairs beneath the floorboards. A low distorted growl filled the whole cabin and suddenly rose into a shriek as Buffy jumped up from the couch and grabbed the axe again. The demonic screams rose and fell from beneath the chained cellar- door and, for a moment, the shrieks sounded almost human before fading into monstrous cries.  
  
"Something's happening to her down there," Xander said, rushing to the the trap-door, tensed and ready to fight against whatever came smashing through the padlocked chains.  
  
The shrieks continued, rippling demonic screams merging with a second, familiar voice, and the trap-door rattled and tore at the hinges, finally sinking back into the floor as a ringing silence filled the air.  
  
"Buffy," a weak, gasping voice called from beneath the floorboards.  
  
"Oh my God," Buffy whispered, "Willow?"  
  
"They're gone," Willow groaned from under the trap-door answered, "I got rid of them, but they're coming back. Please let me out, don't let them take me away again."  
  
Buffy looked slowly around at the rest of the group, her eyes glittering with tears. Anya stood watching from the fireplace,arms folded tightly, while Spike stared from the window, his blind white eyes expressionless but his head tilted with confusion.  
  
Xander stood above the trap-door, his face twisted by pain and bewilderment as he looked around as Dawn clung to Giles and stared at the floor. Buffy then looked up to Giles and he looked back at her, his expression firm and unyielding as he simply shook his head.  
  
"No," Buffy answered, her voice choking with tears, "Willow, we can't. We'll find a way to stop them, but you have to stay down there right now. I'm sorry."  
  
"Buffy, please," Willow sobbed, "they're down here, they'll take me away again. Let me come up there, I can help fight them. We'll use magic, a binding spell, or an exorcism. Tara, please help me."  
  
Everyone looked over to Tara, who had made her way to the trap-door and now sat down beside it, her face close to the loose chains. Buffy shook her head frantically to Tara, who stared back up at her and then simply looked back down, brushing the chains lightly with her fingertips as she took a deep breath.  
  
"Willow, we have to keep you down there right now, but it'll be alright."  
  
"Tara, I need you," Willow whimpered, "I'm scared. I can't fight them by myself again, but maybe if we're together we can stop them. You said you loved me, Tara."  
  
Tara sighed deeply and looked back up at the rest of them, whispering "I have to," as she began to pull at the chains, lifting the door a little as she tugged at the padlock. Something suddenly smashed up through the floor and Buffy ran to Tara as a cracked, withered hand clutched at Tara's wrist, its claws gouging deep into her arm as wild demonic laughter echoed from within the cellar, dead white eyes staring out from beneath the trap- door.  
  
"Let me out, Tara," the snarling voice cackled, "we'll cast spells together. Don't you love me?"  
  
Buffy jumped on top of the cellar door and, balancing on one foot, swung her other foot through the crack, knocking back the giggling inhuman face and then stepping down atop the gnarled claw grabbing Tara. The hinges creaked shut and she leaped back up, yanking her foot out of the crack as the planks slammed back into the floor. Buffy hopped back onto the trap door as Giles and Xander rushed forward, fastening the padlock again as the echoing, choking laughs slowly died away below them.  
  
They looked up to see Tara slowly backing away from them, shaking her head in horror and rage as she neared the front door, her hands pressed to her head.  
  
"Tara, it's okay," Buffy tried to reassure her, "we'll still find a way to get Willow back. This doesn't change anything."  
  
"Yes it does," she answered in a low, shuddering whisper, "she's still alive in there and they used her to get to the rest of us. They're taking her from us," a low howling sob escaping her lips. She suddenly turned around and bolted for the door; Giles lunged at her with a cry but, even as Buffy sprinted across the room toward her, Tara had already fled outside, the door slamming shut behind her.  
  
4  
  
It glided through the forest, uprooting trees and ripping through hanging branches and tangled vines as it rushed blindly forward through the darkness. A chorus of chanting, growling voices trailed along its invisible wake, cold dead souls hungering for the warm glow of life streaming from the cabin windows...and one fresh soul standing outside the cabin door, waiting for it as it smashed through the dead forest toward the clearing.  
  
"Come on," Tara screamed into the woods, "you want a witch, I'll give you a witch! COME ON!"  
  
It tumbled down the slopes of the wooded hill and a hollow tree swayed and crashed to the ground as it neared the cabin. It swept beside the walls, a silent scream of pain filling the whirling vortex of its being as a chorus of dead voices twisted and recoiled from the blinding electric lights within the cabin. It rounded the corner and a low rumbling chant rose from within the chaos of its core as it neared its prey.  
  
"Give her back," Tara shouted, before turning around, a look of sudden panic quickly giving way to rage as she saw it gliding over the leaves toward her, "I said GIVE WILLOW BACK..."  
  
5  
  
"Buffy," Giles said, arms spread out over the front door as he blocked it with his body, "you can't break down the door! We have to keep the cabin as secure as possible!"  
  
"Giles," Buffy said slowly, "move or be moved. We lost Willow and we are not losing Tara."  
  
"Breaking that door would be," Giles started, then he suddenly stopped. Behind him the front door creaked on its hinges, slowly opening out into the misty, silent darkness of the woods. He took a step back and grabbed the axe as Buffy slowly stepped out onto the porch, looking around the empty fog-shrouded clearing and past the thick wall of dead swaying trees before finally calling out into the rustling shadows.  
  
"Tara! Are you out there!?"  
  
Giles appeared behind her a second later, gripping the axe firmly in one hand as he adjusted his glasses and stared into the night over her shoulder. Buffy glanced back to him and shook her head softly.  
  
"Did you hear a scream," she asked anxiously.  
  
"No," he said after a moment, looking around at the misty forest, "but she couldn't have gone far. We'll split up and look around the cabin."  
  
Something smashed into Buffy's forehead and she dropped to her knees, her head throbbing in pain and a thick red film covering her eyes. Something else slammed into her gut and she screamed out in pain as the splintered floor of the porch bashed her in the face. She felt the air rustle over her back and instinctively rolled sideways as something smashed onto the ground, barely missing her spine. She opened her eyes and looked around.  
  
A demon had appeared on the porch and had now turned its face to Giles, its hair bleached white, its bare arms shrivelled and skeletal as it grabbed his chin with one hand and lifted him up against the door, hissing at him as it raised its claw-tipped talons toward his face.  
  
She instantly leaped upward, landing on her feet, and swung around, kicking the thing in the head and knocking it off the porch. It shook its dried tangled hair and looked up, a mocking smile crossing its hideously familiar face as the rest of the group ran to the door.  
  
"Oh my god," Buffy whispered to herself, then aloud, "Giles, get everyone inside now."  
  
"Buffy," Dawn wailed from the open door, "that's Tara! Don't hurt her!"  
  
Buffy turned her head back toward the door, calling back, "get inside NOW," and then flew against one of the log beams of the porch as the deadite's fist slammed into her gut again. She tumbled forward onto her hands and knees and coughed up a sticky red fluid, then lifted her face as the grotesque walking corpse twisted lightly through the air like a dancer, somersaulting forward and kicking Buffy back against the wall as it landed on its feet.  
  
"It's just me Buffy," the dead face whispered in Buffy's ear in Tara's soothing voice, its eyes blank white orbs staring into her own eyes, before slamming its fist into her stomach, its other hand gripping the back of her neck. Its voice suddenly changed as it spoke again, a low growling snarl seeming to erupt from a demonic choir of damned souls rather than a single mouth, "it's just Tara. You wouldn't hurt me, what would Willow think?"  
  
"No," Buffy groaned, blood trailing down the corner of her mouth as she lifted her head, "you're not Tara," and she slammed her fist into the monstrous visage, knocking it back from the porch and standing up as it staggered and swayed on its feet, "now let Tara go or you won't even have a finger left to possess when I'm through."  
  
The thing looked up at Buffy, smooth white eyes wide, and a high pitched girlish giggle escaped its cracked lips as it knelt to the ground, picking up a nearby shovel, "Tara's with us now, burning in Hell with her lover!"  
  
"Then you'd better hope they saved you a seat," Buffy snarled and she somersaulted forward, bouncing from one hand to the next as she flipped toward the grinning undead creature, smashing the undead thing across the chin and knocking it backward into the mist, the shovel dropping onto the ground as it landed on its back.  
  
It growled furiously and leapt up toward Buffy, its long flailing hair and thick sweater a mocking reminder of who it used to be. Buffy stood frozen for a moment, her blood chilling as she recognized the sweater and recognized the girl attacking her, trying to shake off the sudden panicking guilt engulfing her--and then she tumbled backward onto the ground as the cackling demon wearing Tara's clothes knocked her onto her stomach and flew upward into the mist. She rolled onto her stomach, coughing up blood and looking frantically about the empty hollow.  
  
"Soon you'll be just like me," a tittering inhuman voice laughed from the darkness above her, "and who'll protect Dawn when her big sister's the one trying to kill her?"  
  
Buffy closed her eyes as she listened to the voice, gauging its direction, then stretched out one hand and grabbed the shovel, swinging up as the creature flew down from the mists. The shovel smashed into its side and it slammed onto the ground, howling in pain as it rolled onto its back to see Buffy standing over it, shovel tightly gripped in both hands.  
  
She swung the shovel down, ramming the flat end of the blade into the body again and again, knocking its head left and right before twirling the shovel in her palm and beating it across the torso with the handle, ignoring the thing's familiar voice, ignoring its cries and pleas as she swung the stick down again and again . A lifetime seemed to pass before she finally sank onto her knees, the shovel dropping from her blistered hands, her face covered with sweat and blood, beside the motionless, grotesquely deformed body.  
  
"Buffy," Dawn said in a hushed terrified whisper after a moment, and she looked up to see her younger sister, Xander, Anya, Giles and Spike still standing at the front door, staring at her. She looked down from them to the still twitching body and her stomach twisted within her as she recognized her friend's bruised corpse, her long blonde hair strewn with leaves, her smooth pale skin caked with dirt and blood. She closed her eyes and slowly, carefully spoke each word as she braced her palms against her thighs and pushed herself back onto her feet.  
  
"Go inside. I'll take care of this. Don't argue, just go."  
  
"Buffy," Giles asked, "how?"  
  
She looked back up to meet their eyes and answered with one word.  
  
"Workshed." 


	4. Chapter 3: Looking-Glass Forest

Buffy vs. the Evil Dead  
  
by Demon-Fighter Ash  
  
Chapter 3: Looking-Glass Forest  
  
1  
  
Buffy dropped Tara's body onto a wooden table and looked around at the workshed. Bones dangled from the ceiling and knives, saws and cleavers draped the walls. She shook her head, not daring to wonder what anyone would want with that many blades, and noticed chains hanging from the table. She grabbed each one and stretched them tight across Tara's motionless body, looping them through metal rings set into the edges and clicking padlocks over each ring, the chains digging into Tara's clothes, holding her tight against the table.  
  
Buffy lifted up from the table and, after a moment of looking frantically about the shed, she found what she was looking for--a chainsaw hanging above one of the shelves. She grabbed it and turned it over in her hand, finally finding a pull-string and nervously tugging it. The chainsaw roared to life and she winced as she felt it shaking in her hand, sparks and smoke flying from the spinning blade, the engine rattling for the first time in nearly a decade. She glanced back down to the thing on the table as the clacking motor began to steady.  
  
It was Tara. The long shining blonde hair, the slightly blushing cheeks, the faint down on her slender bare arms--whatever demon had invaded her body had vanished, leaving only her friend, seemingly asleep.  
  
Of course it looks like that, Buffy thought to herself, it thinks I won't kill it if it looks like that.  
  
She closed her eyes and began to lower the chainsaw over the thing's arm, trying to forget what she'd seen, trying to remember that the demon chained to the table had attacked her and Giles, threatened her sister. She'd seen its shrivelled flesh--Tara was dead. She deserved to have her body saved from whatever'd stolen it.  
  
"Tara," she whispered to herself. Tara had been her friend. She had to look at her--Tara deserved that. Buffy opened her eyes and winced as she saw Tara again, still unconscious, still human. Maybe she'd recovered, maybe the thing had left her body during the beating to protect itself. Maybe...  
  
That's not how it works, she told herself. She raised the chainsaw again.  
  
Damn it, Buffy cursed to herself as she flipped the chainsaw off, this is just what it wants me to do.  
  
She shook her head and sighed, whispering to the unconscious girl, "I'll do it if I have to," as she tugged on the chains, making sure Tara couldn't break or wriggle out of them if she woke up. She turned around, the chainsaw dangling from one hand as she pushed open the door, and she glanced back to the chained figure lying silent in the shadowy depths of the shed. She stepped out of the shed and turned around, grabbing the doorknob to lock the shed, then froze as a single, barely audible sound emerged from the back of the shed.  
  
"See you soon Buffy," Tara's light giggling voice called from within the shadows.  
  
Buffy shuddered, her blood freezing into ice, and she closed the door, locking and bolting it before running back across the shadow-draped clearing toward the cabin. She sprinted through the back door and slammed it shut as a cold sweeping wind howled through the creaking tree-branches, the wailing midnight wind seeming to form two words as she drew the bolt shut and fled back through the silent hallway toward the living-room.  
  
"Join us..."  
  
2  
  
"My daughter Annie is due to arrive at the cabin in less than a week," Knowby's crackling voice said from the tape, "Since I have no way to warn to her not to come here, I have no other choice."  
  
Giles swallowed silently and sat down at the desk as Xander and Anya sat with Dawn by the fire and Spike paced back and forth in front of the boarded-up living room window.  
  
"I have seen the dark shadows moving in the woods and I have no doubt that whatever I have resurrected through this book is sure come calling for me...and, if she were to come, for Annie. Since the death of the last person who summoned them will dispel the spirits, I have decided to leave the cabin, taking with me only my old hunting rifle. Once I have lost sight of the cabin, I will...lay the spirits to rest once and for all."  
  
"Are you alright," Spike asked as Buffy dropped the chainsaw by the back door and staggered into the living room, wiping her face with her shirt. She panted and looked up at his blank white-eyed expression, then to the rest of the group, all staring at her anxiously as she caught her breath and wiped away the dried blood and mud.  
  
"I'm fine," she answered, "Tara's locked up in the workshed. If that thing in her's smart, it'll stay out there."  
  
"Buffy," Giles started, then she suddenly cut him off, walking quickly to the front door and checking the lock, then turning back around as she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and sighing deeply.  
  
"Just tell me you've figured out some way out of this mess."  
  
"Actually, I think I may have something," he nodded to the tape player, sitting on the desk atop a road map, "I've been listening to the rest of Professor Knowby's recordings," he paused awkwardly, "fast- forwarding past all the incantations, of course, and he did mention giving a copy of his notes to a local priest, Father Allard. If Allard still has his copy of those notes, they may contain the passages we need to end this."  
  
"So," Xander asked, looking out into the howling darkness, "where is this Padre Allard guy?"  
  
"Not very far," Giles said as he walked back to the desk and looked at the map, "he's at the Sacred Heart Church, within walking distance of the cabin," he paused, "though we'd have to go through the woods."  
  
"Are you insane," Anya cried out, "you don't have any idea what's out there! That thing's still flying around, and there's the trees, and I'm sure they've started possessing the rabbits," she suddenly shuddered and began to ramble, "there's probably a horde of them right now gathering around the cabin, hordes of little demon bunnies, waiting to nibble on us...I just knew this was going to happen, this is all your fault Xander!"  
  
"MY fault," he looked up in surprise as she ran off to the kitchen, and he stood up to follow her, "what did I do?"  
  
"But it's not as bad as all that," Giles said to Buffy, "we're not walking."  
  
"Not walking," Buffy repeated, thought about it and then, still confused, asked, "not walking?"  
  
"Not walking," he answered and nodded to Spike, "Spike, I want you to come with me. We don't know how fast the book's power is spreading but I'm sure it's reached the church by now."  
  
"And let me guess, you're gonna need me to play bodyguard," Spike grunted sarcastically, then shrugged, "count me in. I need to let off some steam anyhow."  
  
"What about us," Dawn asked.  
  
"I want all of you to stay here with Buffy," Giles said as he picked up the axe and tossed it to Spike, who caught it with one hand, then he picked up the revolver and carefully began loading each of the bullets, "if we don't make it back," he looked over to Buffy, "you'll have to lead the rest of them out of this forest. Nobody has a better chance of doing that than you."  
  
"No," Buffy shouted, "we're not splitting up! If you go out there..."  
  
"The cabin's the safest place right now," Giles answered softly, "we can't all go out into the woods, that would slow us down and make this even more dangerous. You have to stay and protect them."  
  
"Alright," Buffy answered after a long sigh, and she suddenly hugged Giles, "be careful out there."  
  
"Right," he answered as he hugged her softly and let go, "give us about half an hour, no more than that. After that, it's all up to you."  
  
"Yeah, no pressure," Buffy wiped tears from her streaked face, "see you soon?"  
  
"Count on it," he nodded and turned to Spike, "ready?"  
  
"Been ready all night, ripper," he answered, twirling the axe in one hand, "let's kick some deadite."  
  
"Wait a minute," Dawn cried from the couch and she leaped up, running over to Giles and hugging him tightly, holding onto him, "why can't we all go, it'd be safer that way! Why do you have to go alone?"  
  
"It wouldn't be safer," Giles answered as he squeezed her shoulders, "but trust me. We'll be fine."  
  
"That's right, little bit," Spike answered with a smile, "I've got his back."  
  
Dawn tried to smile back, still flinching at the sight of Spike's blank white eyes and blackened lips, then nodded and hugged him as well, turning back to Giles, "you'd better come back alive," and then looking up at Spike, "and you...just come back, alright?"  
  
Spike snickered a little and nodded, then glanced up to Buffy.  
  
"No goodbye hug from big sis?"  
  
"Just be careful Spike," Buffy said warmly with a pat on his arm.  
  
"Better than nothing," he shrugged, "let's go, Rupert."  
  
"What about Xander and Anya," Dawn asked as she glanced to the bedroom, Anya screaming something about deadite bunnies as Xander tried to calm her, "don't you want to say goodbye to them?"  
  
"There's no time," Giles said, "besides, we won't be gone long," then his expression turned serious as he looked to Buffy, "but if something goes wrong out there and...and I come back..."  
  
"Don't say it," Buffy answered firmly, "I know what you mean, but don't say it."  
  
"But you have to promise me that you won't hesit..."  
  
"I promise," she answered seriously, meeting his eyes, "I swear it, lt's just...let's just not think about that, alright?"  
  
Giles nodded and clicked the revolving chamber shut on the gun, pushing it into his pocket as he stepped out the door. Spike nodded to each of them and closed the door behind him. After an endless, speechless moment Buffy walked to the door and twisted the locks again, then looked back to Dawn.  
  
They were alone.  
  
3  
  
"I can't believe he didn't tell me," Xander complained as he looked through the hallway closet.  
  
"There wasn't really time," Buffy called out as she pulled open the desk drawers, "and they won't be gone for long. How's it looking in there?"  
  
"He's going senile," Anya explained matter-of-factly as she yanked open the kitchen cabinets, "either that or he's just always been nuts," she cocked her head curiously, "was he awake when we drove back from the bridge? If he slept through it, maybe he doesn't know what's out there. That explains it. Old people sleep a lot"  
  
"I'm pretty sure he was awake," Dawn called out as she checked the bedroom closet.  
  
"Alright, what do we have," Buffy called out into the cabin. Xander came in from the hallway, hoisting the chainsaw in both hands as Anya emerged from the kitchen with a baseball bat. Buffy nodded to each of them and turned around toward the hallway, then suddenly gave a short scream as she saw Dawn walking around a corner with a rifle tucked under her arms.  
  
"Dawn," she said sharply, "trade with Anya...I guess," as she lifted the double-barreled shotgun up and twirled it, then grabbed it in both hands and slid the pump-action bolt back with a click.  
  
"Hail to the scooby gang, baby."  
  
4  
  
Headlights blazed through the forest and the station-wagon smashed through the woods, saplings and weeds ripped from the ground as it tore through the underbrush. A small tree stretched its branches out from the woods toward the car and suddenly its branches ripped in half, blood splattering across the windshield as the battered car rammed through the flickering weeds toward the distant light of a church.  
  
Black howling winds swept through the forest, chasing after the dim red glow of the station-wagon's tail lights, knocking aside twigs and branches as it rushed forward through the clumps of dried foliage, splitting tree trunks in half and felling tall century-old trees as it shrieked and twisted forward after the car.  
  
"Come on," Spike shouted gleefully as he twisted the steering wheel and smashed into another sapling, "that's right, come get some! Who wants a little, huh?"  
  
"Spike," Giles said nervously from the passenger's seat, looking down at the map, "we're not trying to run down the whole forest, we just need to get to the church. We're lucky we found these electric poles...any other part of the forest would have been too thick to drive through."  
  
It glided across a swiftly-running stream and rushed blindly forward, vines and branches sweeping back through its wake as it flew up a hill and dipped back down into a leaf-covered hollow, the speeding car's lights within arm's reach as it tumbled over the dead leaves, roaring with rage as it raced onward.  
  
"Suit yourself mate," Spike shrugged as he stepped on the gas, the station-wagon digging through the bushes, then swung the car around to dodge a tree-trunk, "but I'm feeling the need for speed!"  
  
Snarling voices filled the cold autumn air, an ethereal chorus of half-audible chanting tones rising and falling as it swept after the car like a kraken piercing the deepest oceans. Fog rolled and billowed outward from its wake as it flew through the crushed and beaten trail of the automobile.  
  
The car climbed up a steep overgrown hill and suddenly leaped out of the woods, bouncing as it landed atop the summit in front of the small country church, and Spike swung the wheel once more, the car skidding and sliding toward the front doors, sliding sideways alongside the church as he killed the engine.  
  
"They're getting close," Spike muttered under his breath, "I can hear them. Let's get inside, now!"  
  
"Right," Giles answered, tugging at the locked church doors as Spike jogged up the steps. Spike nudged Giles out of the way and grabbed the doorknob, then ripped it completely off the door and tossed it away. He kicked open the door and the two of them ran into the church sanctuary as a howling wind rose behind them.  
  
It raced up the hill and swept along the pine needles and scattered clumps of grass, roaring in pain and rage as it neared the searing light of the old church. Two figures rose up from the shadows as it twisted around the car and its countless voices shrieked in triumph...then howled in frustration as the church door slammed shut, the figures vanishing into the blinding, burning electric glow of the church.  
  
Giles grabbed one of the wooden pews and dragged it across the stone floor, bracing it against the double doors, then turned around to look at the church. The sanctuary seemed to creak and rock in the autumn wind, the white paint on the walls chipping away and the pews and floorboards bare and unpainted. He looked over to Spike, who seemed to flinch a little at the sight of the church, then up at a plain flower-capped altar and podium set up on a small raised stage at the front of the church. Suddenly one of the doors leading into the back of the church burst open and a middle-aged man in black robes and a bowler hat stepped in, raising a huge chainsaw in the air.  
  
"Now there's something you don't see every day," Spike remarked calmly.  
  
"Get over here fast," the man shouted to Giles as he revved up the chainsaw and took a step forward, "your friend's been possessed!"  
  
"No," Giles screamed out through the whine of the saw, "he's alright. You can put that down!"  
  
"We don't have time," the priest screamed, "I've seen this before. Get away from him NOW!"  
  
"Oh, for the love of," Spike muttered, rolling his blank white eyes, "look you ninny, if I were possessed I would have killed you both by now! I just...woke up on the wrong side of the grave this morning, I guess..."  
  
"He really is alright," Giles said, stepping in front of Spike, "they tried to take possession of him but it didn't work. He looks like one of them but...he's still himself."  
  
"How's that possible," the man asked, lowering the chainsaw to look at the two strangers.  
  
"I don't have a soul for them to swallow," Spike sneered as he brushed past Giles and looked around at the small country church.  
  
"So you're a vampire," the man said as he switched off the chainsaw, his dark eyes and battle-worn features tense as he sized the two visitors up, "but still safer than the thing out there, I guess. I'm Father Allard, of the Order of the Sacred Heart. Now...what in God's name are you two doing out here?"  
  
5  
  
"I keep the notes down here," Father Allard said as he pushed the altar aside to reveal a small hole in the wooden floor, "eight years ago the forest came to life and I studied the pages trying to figure out how to change it back to normal. But somehow the evil disappeared on its own, or maybe Knowby banished it. I tried to go back to his cabin, but I never did find the right trail--I guess whatever lives in this forest still had some hold on it."  
  
"Why down there," Giles asked as the priest rose to his feet, holding the loose pages in one hand.  
  
"This place is a church," Allard answered, "and the altar's the center of the church. I had hoped the evil would never look in here for the pages...and for eight years, I've been right."  
  
"Is there a spell in the pages," Giles asked seriously, "one that can dispel the evil, send it back?"  
  
"I continued to study the pages for years," Father Allard replied as he dusted off the yellowing pages, "and in time, yes, I did find something. Two passages, actually. One makes the evil a thing of flesh, and another passage to open a sort of hole in the sky, one that will banish the evil from this place."  
  
"That sounds perfect," Giles answered, "we should get started..."  
  
Allard suddenly screamed and looked down as a needle-tipped brass candle-holder stabbed through his chest, blood staining his white shirt as his eyes rolled back in his head. The pole ripped out of his body from behind and Allard tumbled to the ground, dead. Giles looked up from the body to Spike as the vampire staggered backward for a moment, then smiled and swung the brass rod in his hand like a baton, dead white eyes staring at Giles.  
  
"Spike," Giles cried out, "what have you done?!"  
  
"William has finally joined us," a guttural demonic voice rose from between Spike's cracked lips, then his head flung backward in a high- pitched cackling shriek, "and soon all mankind shall follow him!"  
  
6  
  
Buffy looked up from the window as glass suddenly shattered in one of the bedrooms, lifting the shotgun to her chest as she stepped down from the couch and looked slowly around at the living room, as Xander, Dawn and Anya glanced from her to the shadowy hallway and closed bedroom doors.  
  
"Stay here with Dawn," Buffy said quietly, "I'll check it out."  
  
She slowly walked across the living room and cringed at the creaking floorboards as she tried to make her way silently through the hall. She stopped at the closed bedroom door and sighed, taking a deep breath. She kicked the bedroom door open and waved the shotgun around the empty room.  
  
Broken glass lay strewn around the room and across the orange bedsheets and she slowly looked around the room, gun still lifted as she slowly turned her head, scanning the dust-filled bedroom and the half-open bathroom door across the room. She slowly, reluctantly stepped over the threshold, still gripping the shotgun tightly.  
  
Come on Tara, she whispered, I heard you breaking the window...  
  
She suddenly shook her head with confusion; the windows had already shattered earlier, how could she have heard another one breaking again just now? She looked closer and noticed the pieces seemed too shiny, as if they were diamonds or water rather than real glass. She bent down and lifted one of the jagged pieces between her fingers.  
  
"A mirror," she muttered to herself, confused, and looked up to the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, now an empty wooden frame with a few pieces of glass stubbornly dangling from the edges. She looked around the empty bedroom once more, her brow furrowed with bewilderment.  
  
Why would the mirror...  
  
She felt someone backhand her across the face and she flew sideways across the room, landing atop the bright orange bedsheets, and looked up, ready to fight. She suddenly froze and shook her head at what she saw standing in front of her, a slight coy smile on its face as it stared back across the room at her.  
  
It was her. The same dark pants, the same white blouse, the same fastened hair. The thing could have been her twin--its brown eyes gleamed as it looked into her own brown eyes and its cheeks folded into the same dimples as it smiled at the real Buffy, who lifted herself back onto her feet and shook her head in speechless confusion.  
  
"It's like looking into a mirror," the other girl asked in Buffy's own voice, "isn't it, Buffy," and it began to laugh, girlish giggles mingling with deep monstrous shrieks as it suddenly lunged forward. 


	5. Chapter 4: Threshold

Buffy vs. the Evil Dead  
  
by Demon-Fighter Ash  
  
Chapter 4: Threshold  
  
1  
  
Giles leaped backward from the possessed vampire as it swung the brass pole in a wide arc, then dropped to the floor and rolled across the aisle, trying to put a few pews between himself and the snarling demon- possessed creature that Spike had become.  
  
"How," he asked, his firm voice trembling, "you don't have a soul, how could they take it!?"  
  
"William," the creature answered in a soft mocking voice, its neck cracking as it flexed its head against each shoulder and grabbed the loose pages, the front doors slamming open by themselves as it tossed the pages out into the howling wind outside, letting them scatter into the forest, "is but a vessel, filled by an energy not his own. Now he is our vessel and all that remains of him is drowning within us."  
  
"Spike, listen to me," Giles said firmly, "if what they're saying is true, then you're still in there. You have to fight them, they'll destroy you, us...they'll kill Buffy, you know that!"  
  
He heard something drop onto the wooden floor behind him and turned around as the metal pole smashed into his jaw, knocking him onto his back against the podium as the deadite suddenly roared and fell back against the pews, shaking its head for a moment with confusion and then looking back up with a calm smile, brushing down its black-leather coat and gliding through the air, its feet hanging above the floor as it neared Giles.  
  
The chip, Giles whispered to himself, they didn't know about it...they couldn't take his soul so they don't have his memories...they don't really know anything about him besides his name...  
  
Giles reached blindly up over his shoulders, fumbling across the podium as the hovering undead thing glided over the aisle toward him, twirling and aiming the needle-tip of the candle-holder down at Giles' chest as he groped the podium desperately, his fingers suddenly curling around a large wooden cross and thrusting it between himself and the pale floating ghoul above him. It grinned in amusement and snatched the piece of wood out of his hand, then screamed and flung it back to the ground, its palms smoldering as Giles rolled beneath the possessed vampire and grabbed the cross again, lifting it back up between himself and the hovering creature.  
  
"I know all the rules," Giles panted as the thing floated cautiously in a wide circle around him, trying to avoid the cross, "and you don't know any of them," Giles lifted a tall brass candleholder with his left arm, swinging it around so that the needle at the top pointed straight at the monster, "let's go."  
  
2  
  
Buffy slammed onto the bed and then kicked upward as her twin leaped atop her, knocking the other girl back against the wall as she jumped back to her feet. She glanced around for the shotgun and then felt her heart sink as her doppleganger picked it up and aimed it at her mockingly.  
  
"Anybody can use a gun," it said in her own voice, and then flung the shotgun into the bathroom behind her, blocking the door, "but we don't need weapons," it shrugged, "after all, we're the slayer."  
  
"No, I'M the slayer," Buffy answered, spinning around and jump- kicking the other girl in the chin, knocking her back a little bit, "you're just a wanna-be. A groupie. A slayer poser."  
  
"Just like Riley," the other girl said as she looked back up, and Buffy flinched, "he was a poser too, a little soldier-boy thinking he could be a slayer like us. But we showed him, didn't we?"  
  
"What," Buffy whispered, "how could you know about Riley?"  
  
The other girl tilted her head back with a soft laugh and then flung one knee out against Buffy's stomach, then slammed her elbow into Buffy's face, knocking her sideways against the bedroom wall.  
  
"And Willow, there's a wanna-be if ever there was one," the thing said in Buffy's own voice, "she learned all that magic just to be like us, just to be worthy of our friendship. You didn't want to see it, but I did."  
  
"What are you," Buffy whispered in confusion and horror.  
  
"I'm everything you don't want to see in yourself," the other girl taunted from across the room, "all the pride, the hate, the selfishness, the cruelty...I'm bad Buffy and you're good Buffy."  
  
"No," Buffy snarled, shaking her head defiantly, "you're just another demon."  
  
"Just another demon," it giggled, "like Ford, and Harmony, and Natalie...all your classmates, all those people, they were all just demons, weren't they? And when they got in our way, we staked them. That's what we do when people get in our way: we kill them and call them demons to make it alright."  
  
"Those were vampires," Buffy answered, her voice choked with rage as the doppleganger's words hit a nerve, "they were already dead...nothing could save them, they had to be stopped."  
  
"It's not so bad when it's other people's friends and family," it giggled madly, "we just stake them without breaking a sweat. But when it's our own friends...that's when we worry about saving them."  
  
"That's not true," Buffy said slowly, "this isn't the same. Willow's alive and I'll find some way to save her. Vampires are already dead, they can't be saved."  
  
"Sure they can, we saved Angel," her double answered, then shrugged, "but then again, he was cute, tall, a good lay. He was worth saving, not like all those other losers that we staked."  
  
Buffy suddenly lunged forward, her right fist swinging at her twin's face, and she winced as the other girl calmy grabbed her knuckles with one hand and twisted her arm around, throwing the slayer to the ground with her other arm.  
  
"I told you," her reflection laughed, "we're the slayer, you and me both. Only I'm fine with being a murderer, I think it's cool. I'm not the wimp who has to lie to herself at night just to sleep."  
  
"You're wrong," Buffy shook her head in horror, "they weren't human..."  
  
"They're just like Angel and Spike," her double shrugged, "except they weren't as useful to us. So we killed them, just like we kill anyone who isn't useful to us, who gets in our way..."  
  
Buffy sank silently onto the bed, eyes wide with self-doubt and panic, listening to her reflection giggling, its voice giving words to all the silent unspoken guilt that had haunted her for years.  
  
"No," she said in a panicked whisper, "I'm the slayer...I didn't have a choice..."  
  
"That's right," her deuce answered, " and now we're going to finish by slaying our friends."  
  
3  
  
"I'm going back there," Xander said grimly, hoisting the chainsaw up to his chest.  
  
"But she's the slayer," Anya answered nervously, "if she needs help, what can any of us do?"  
  
"I'm sure she's okay," Dawn said, biting her lip and torn between concern for her older sister and concern for Xander and Anya, then jerked back a little as a crash filled the cabin.  
  
"Anya," Xander kissed her gently across the lips, "stay with Dawn. I'll be right back."  
  
"Wait," Dawn called out tentatively, then sighed as he disappeared into the hallway, leaving the two girls alone in the living room, and she looked back at Anya, "isn't that what they always say before..."  
  
"This isn't a horror movie," Anya said comfortingly, then frowned, "it's more like a snuff film."  
  
"Great," Dawn sighed, and then jumped up from the couch as the cellar hatch began to bang up and down, smashing against the chains as the creature within the cellar steadily beat at the trap door.  
  
"Willow," Anya called out, clutching Dawn tightly as the trap-door rocked against the floor, "um, just stay down there and be a good deadite- demon thing...we'll get some kitchen scraps for you, maybe?"  
  
Something growled from beneath the half-open trap door, a low raspy voice rising into a shrieking cackling laugh, and Dawn clutched Anya tighter as the older girl tried to think something to say.  
  
"Um, I've got demon-connections," Anya stammered, "and I could probably get a great job for you...like a vengeance demon, maybe? Just don't bang on that door..."  
  
The cellar door continued to rattle as the thing within slammed up against the wooden planks harder and harder, then the front door flew open, a decrepit half-rotted arm grabbing Anya by the hair and slamming her back over the couch. Dawn whirled around and suddenly gave a high-pitched scream as she saw the dead white-eyed thing standing in the doorway, long ash-blonde hair fluttering in the gale as it gave a soft mocking giggle and glided toward her, talons outstretched.  
  
4  
  
The two brass poles clashed and swung against each other as Giles back into a corner, each swing of the deadite's rod against his own spike- tipped pole driving him further into the back of the church.  
  
"Spike," Giles shouted, "wake up! You have to fight them!"  
  
The white-eyed ghoul twisted the blood-stained baton in its palms and swung it forward, smashing Giles across the face with the length of the pole and sending his glasses sliding across the floor. The deadite recoiled in pain for a moment and Giles leaped down to the floor to grab his glasses, whirling back upright just in time to block the creature's swinging baton with his own candlestick.  
  
"It's too late, Rupert," a young woman's voice answered from beyond Spike's cracked lips, and Giles froze for a second as he recognized Annie Knowby's voice. The deadite suddenly slipped its baton under Giles' pole and ripped it from his hands, sending it flying across the sanctuary, "your pet vampire is with us now!"  
  
"You took Annie," Giles said slowly as he crawled backward through the church, away from the giggling white-faced creature, "you used her voice, her memories, to lure me here. Why?"  
  
"Thank you Rupert," the possessed vampire answered in Annie's voice as other voices began to rise from its mouth, a chorus of voices speaking as one, "we've waited millennia for her...and now you finally brought her to us."  
  
"What," Giles muttered to himself, shaking his head, "the slayer...Buffy has something to do with this. You need her for something...why? What's she got to do with all this?"  
  
"You really don't know," the countless voices laughed, and a low demonic growl mimicking Spike's own voice rose as the deadite stabbed the pole downward, "foolish old man...she was always one of us!"  
  
5  
  
"We're going to kill all of them," the doppleganger said calmly as it kicked Buffy in the stomach, then lifted her in both hands and threw her back across the room.  
  
"No," Buffy gasped, lifting herself onto her hands and knees, and glaring at her twin, "I don't care what you say I am, I would never do that. I'd rather die than let you things possess me!"  
  
"Possess us," her double laughed, lightly flipping over her palms in a single graceful sideways cartwheel and landing on her feet in front of Buffy, blocking the bedroom door, "nobody's going to possess us. One by one our friends will turn...and before this night ends we're going to cut every single one of them up with a chainsaw."  
  
"No," Buffy shook her head, "I'll find some way to stop them...something else..."  
  
"We've never tried to save anybody else," the thing laughed with Buffy's own voice, "don't you think it'd be selfish to start now, just because it happens to be our friends? We'll cut them to pieces, just like we drove stakes through the hearts of all the others, and when the police come in the morning they'll find us alone..."  
  
"No," Buffy slipped back against the wall, shaking her head frantically.  
  
"Sitting alone with our dismembered friends lying around the cabin, surrounded by arms and legs...and as they fit us into the straitjacket, we'll be laughing, and laughing, and laughing..."  
  
Something smashed into the cackling girl's head and she dropped to the ground with a sharp rasping cry, rolling onto her back see Xander standing above her, the chainsaw roaring to life in his hands.  
  
"Oh yeah," Xander demanded as the thing on the ground hissed, "well who's laughing now, huh?"  
  
Buffy took the chainsaw from him and dropped onto her knees beside her glaring twin, its screams rising as she lowered the spinning blade into its flesh and bone, Xander turning away from the sight.  
  
"Who's laughing now," she screamed at the flailing doppleganger.  
  
After several minutes the engine died and she felt a warm hand slipping around her shoulder and lifting her back to her feet--and she suddenly realized that her twin's flesh had been cold, like a corpse. She jumped up and twisted away from the body, then hugged Xander tightly and looked up at his face.  
  
"How did you know," she asked, "that she wasn't...that she wasn't me..."  
  
"I heard some of what it said," he hugged her again and let her go, giving a small comforting laugh, "that thing was the worst excuse for a slayer since Faith."  
  
"But she was right," Buffy said, staring down at the floor, "I hunt and kill...and I try so hard not to think about who they were before they changed, who their friends were, their family...if I could save them..."  
  
"Buffy," Xander sighed and squeezed her shoulders softly, "that thing wasn't you, no matter what it tried to tell you. They're just trying to mess with you, trying to make you doubt yourself--that's all."  
  
"We've been assuming there's some way to fix this, because it's our friends and not just strangers" Buffy sighed as she picked up the shotgun, "but what if there isn't? What if they're really gone?"  
  
"If they're really gone then...then we'll avenge them, just like we would if it were vampires," Xander started, and then suddenly stopped as something heavy smashed into the living room. Buffy glanced from the door back to Xander, hoisting the shotgun in one hand and chainsaw in the other.  
  
"Where are the others," she asked firmly, back in control.  
  
"The living room," he answered, "I asked Anya to stay with Dawn," and then they both sprinted across the room and slammed the bedroom door open as they heard Dawn's high-pitched scream.  
  
6  
  
Buffy ran through the empty living room, barely noticing the broken cellar door, and stepped out the front door into the misty night. She instantly felt her head reeling and throbbing against a steady pulsing rhythm that seemed to fill the air and beat within her brain, as though the universe itself were echoing the pulse of some gigantic heartbeat.  
  
She dropped the chainsaw and shotgun, shaking her head and looking around at the clearing, the cabin and the ring of trees seeming to flicker and undulate in a blur of trembling shapes and shadows. The landscape seemed to have mutated, the trees resembling black columns stretching up into the night, the cabin a crumbling prehistoric temple of dark gods. She looked around the forest and suddenly imagined a lifeless infinite void behind the dead trees, as if the whole universe had died while they were in the cabin and left the cabin and the small clearing floating in the darkness.  
  
"Xa-Xand-Xander-ander-er...can yo-you see an-any-any-thi-thing-thi- thing?"  
  
Her eyes widened at the sound of her own voice echoing and looping over itself like a broken tape, and she lifted her hand to her face, jolting back at the sight of five or six hands all waving through the air, each one mimicking the last one's movements. After a moment she realized that they were all her one right hand, each image a second off from the others, as though time itself were shimmering and vibrating against the invisible pulse.  
  
"Xan...der," she repeated carefully, pausing between each second so that her words matched the temporal echoes, "can...you...see...anything?"  
  
He tried to speak, his words come out as a babel of echoing syllables, then shrugged helplessly at her, his shoulders rising and falling six times as the past and future blended into the present. She looked back around, her senses beginning to adjust to the vortex of twisting afterimages and echoing sounds, then noticed a large circle of fire, as big as the cabin itself, burning against the ground. A fierce roaring wind filled the forest and Buffy covered her ears, looking closer at the circle as arcane letters and hieroglyphs scratched themselves into the leaf-covered ground with the same fiery cracks, twisting around the outside of the circle, forming a pentagram.  
  
"Kanda! Estrata kinder-schtat! Sobar! Gatra! Dampil la-jetee!"  
  
She suddenly noticed three shadowy figures standing around the circle to form a triangle, hands clasped as a fourth figure hovered in the center of the circle, her thin arms outstretched as she chanted alien words in a familiar lilting voice, the words somehow ringing clear despite the pulsing echo that seemed to engulf the rest of the clearing. Buffy gasped and turned quickly to Xander, who looked back from the glowing circle at her.  
  
"That's...Dawn!"  
  
7  
  
Giles rolled across the floor, beneath the pews and jumped back to his feet as the thing swung back around toward him, its bared teeth caked with blood as its swollen black tongue traced over its lips, and he glanced about at the floor, tightly gripping the candlestick with one hand as he noticed the small metal cross lying in the aisle.  
  
"Pathetic," Giles panted to the growling creature, "is that the best you can do? You don't even make a decent vampire, let alone a demon!"  
  
The deadite lifted its peeling face toward him and Giles glimpsed for a moment a familiar glint of indignation building beneath the blind white eyes, then nodded with approval. He'd realized as the thing continued to toy with him that somehow Spike was still holding them back. Whether out of fear of the chip, because of Buffy, or perhaps some unfathomable concern for the gang's well-being he couldn't tell, but he knew that if the deadite didn't make a killing blow soon, he'd start to wear down and lose his one chance. He needed Spike to stop fighting them.  
  
"I've seen housecats scarier than you," Giles shouted as the monster glared at him and cocked its head from side to side, "you could go trick-or- treating and parents wouldn't even notice. You're nothing anymore, not even a vampire. How could anybody be afraid of a poor dumb animal like you?"  
  
"You think you know fear," the guttural echoing voice answered with a growl, Spike's own voice mixed with countless other voices, "we'll teach you terrors you've never dreamed!"  
  
Giles just nodded in a silent challenge and gripped the long candlestick tightly as the floating wraith swept toward him, the pole aimed forward, the needle-tip aimed toward Giles' chest. Giles braced himself, knowing that his bluff had worked and that they were now going for the kill, and felt his muscles tense as it flew closer, clenched teeth bared and dead white eyes wide. His knees silently quivered beneath him but he closed his eyes, lifting the pole up to cover his heart but otherwise leaving himself open, determined not to duck or leap away.  
  
The deadite plunged the needle into Giles' stomach with a gleeful cry and he staggered back with a groan, the pole almost slipping between his fingers as throbbing pain blurred his vision. He made himself look up and saw that his plan had worked. Whatever pain the vampire caused humans was returned many times over by the chip and even now it staggered left and right, its weapon lying on the ground as it clutched its head and shrieked.  
  
Giles clenched his teeth, swallowing against the searing pain in his gut, and he kicked the deadite between the knees, then swung his foot into the air, ducking as he grabbed the creature in both hands and flipped it onto its back against the stage at the front of the church sanctuary. The bare wooden planks collapsed beneath the force of the throw and it slammed into the earthen floor of the church cellar, a few feet beneath the sanctuary floor.  
  
"Sorry, Spike," Giles sighed as he lifted the makeshift spear over his head at the snarling beast.  
  
He slammed it down, the needle stabbing into the deadite's ribs, then he dug and twisted the tip forward into its torso, finally impaling it to the ground. The creature growled and grabbed the pole in both hands, then cried out in pain as its palms began to smolder, quickly yanking its hands away from the pole.  
  
Giles finished twisting the metal cross into the candleholder atop of the pole, ensuring that Spike wouldn't try to pull himself loose from it, then sank onto the ground, exhausted.  
  
8  
  
Xander opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it, the effect making his lips flutter like hummingbird wings or an electric fan. He simply nodded, stooping to the ground to pick up the shovel.  
  
"Wait," she said slowly, trying to match each pulse of the throbbing air, "we...need to...find out...what they're...doing..."  
  
"H-ho-how-ow-o?"  
  
She silently took the shovel from him and ran through the quivering air toward the circle, knocking one of the figures across the chest with the flat head, slamming it onto the ground. The dim flickering red light illuminated its face as it lifted upright and she barely flinched as she recognized Anya's distorted features grimacing as it looked up at her.  
  
"The circle's been formed," the deadite called up from the ground, "it's too late to break it."  
  
"Oh, but I'm an expert at breaking things," Buffy answered as she lifted the shovel.  
  
A cold pale flash of light flared to life behind her and she turned back around to see a huge seething column twisting like a spiralling staircase through the air, grotesque half-solid shadows weaving together into a towering pillar of darkness and flashing energy as it reached up into the storm-ridden sky.  
  
The cold light pulsing from the circle flickered like a strobe and through the flashes she glimpsed gigantic living shapes swimming through the air, brushing past her and even slithering through her body, leaving an icy chill within her bones. She stared at the woods and saw skeletal beasts gliding through the forest, robed ghoulish figures drifting mutely through the trees as cackling half-rotted things circled overhead on gigantic tattered wings.  
  
"Th-he ga-gate," Buffy said in awe, forgetting to match her syllables to the pulse, "i-its-open-op..."  
  
From somewhere deep within the twisting vortex she heard a faint sound rising from the silence, a groaning musical chant swelling from an endless abyssal darkness. She twisted her head toward the sign, toward the center of the pulsing psychic storm, and within its writhing darkness time rippled and opened, revealing a void far beyond the reach of time or space, beyond shape and substance. Within the void she glimpsed the hell that demons had once made of the Earth: spirits riding the cold winds of space, worlds withering into madness and death at their silent unseen touch, men hunted like animals through rotted undead forests, across oceans of warm blood...  
  
"Kandara oberon! Nosferatus nemesine! Niktu barada klaatu!"  
  
Buffy felt her knees starting to give way beneath her and she tried to turn away from the darkness, but it held her gaze, filling her mind with images that seemed at once immeasurably ancient and immeasurably distant, as though human history were merely an interlude betwen the age of demons. She saw crumbling towers and buildings covered with snaking vines, fog- shrouded graveyards crawling with once-human creatures as the ground erupted, vast titanic shapes rising out of the ocean depths, emerging into the endless twilight of the upper air as the Earth itself vanished beneath a swarm of growing shadows, finally fading altogether from the heavens...  
  
"How," Buffy said slowly to the thing that had once been Anya, "the gate doesn't open tonight. It's not supposed to open for thousands of years. You don't even have the book!"  
  
"We have," the thing in Anya's body answered as she twisted into the air like a marionette, "everything we need. We will live again and the seas will run red with the blood of the living!"  
  
"Nwad! Ib Daed! Ym-ra! Ssen-krad vo! Leda evid!"  
  
Buffy glanced over her shoulder toward the symbol and looked at Dawn, still hovering in the middle of the circle, her arms stretched out, her eyes blank white orbs as she chanted a long string of harsh alien syllables, while the other two deadites floated outside the circle, staring. She turned around toward the deadite in front of her, her face contorted with rage at the thought of Dawn being hurt by these things.  
  
"You bastards," Buffy screamed as she flailed out at the deadite with the shovel, "give me back my sister," then she winced as another one grabbed her from behind and twisted her arm, cracked blackened lips whispering in her ear with a voice that had once been Willow's.  
  
"Stupid child," the rasping voice snarled, "the key was never yours."  
  
Buffy felt her heart freezing within her chest as the dead voice spoke a word that she thought she would never hear again and her mind swam within a sudden torrent of memories and half-connected ideas...  
  
The key is the link, the knights had said, the link must be severed...Glory wanted the key but she didn't make it and she said it was as old as this side of forever...Giles said the Book of the Dead came from an age when spirits ruled the earth, before the age of animals...he said the book was the last and most famous of their ancient relics, but that didn't mean it was the only one...the book was a window between their world and this one, but it wasn't a doorway...specific celestial alignments unlocked the doorway between worlds, but the doors wouldn't unlock on their own for another two thousand years...when they took Willow, they practically ignored her and everyone else, they went after Dawn..."we are the things that were and shall soon be once more"...the key is the link, the link must be severed, the key is the link, the link must be severed, the key is...  
  
"You," Buffy gasped in shocked realization as she suddenly understood.  
  
The monks, the knights, even Glory herself didn't know who had first made the key, the cosmic energy-form that'd since become her sister Dawn, or why...but in one horrifying instant Buffy knew.  
  
"You made the key," Buffy whispered, "you knew you'd need it to come back..."  
  
Amid the sounds of her sister's chanting voice she heard the other three, their light voices filling the night as a choir of children's voices seemed to emerge from the twisting black cylinder, a song that Buffy remembered from her childhood with Dawn, one that took on a chilling new meaning as she looked at the flaming circle and her sister in the middle of the symbol, half-hidden within the swelling vortex as the incantation continued...  
  
ring around the rosies, a pocketful of posies...  
  
ashes, ashes...you'll all fall down...  
  
"We've won, slayer," Tara's possessed voice sang as the three deadites glided through the air toward her, "victory is ours!"  
  
"Not yet," she muttered, looking back into the fiery circle and the vortex, her sister hovering between two worlds as a howling column of chaos reached up through the forest and poured into the sky, spreading outward and devouring the heavens as ghostly skeletal shapes and twisting streamers of energy flew about her.  
  
"The key is the link," Buffy slowly told herself, "the link must be severed."  
  
The three approaching deadites twisted around in surprise as she ran past them, and she sprinted between their hovering bodies, knocking two of them onto the ground with a swing of the shovel and then tossing it aside as she raced toward the symbol and the floating chanting young girl in the middle of the maelstrom. Instinctive, primal terror filled her heart as she stared into the hole in creation that the things had torn open, and she knew she should flee through the woods, get away from it--trying to stop the fountain of darkness blasting its way into the world would be as useless trying to stop the biblical flood. It would be nothing more or less than suicide.  
  
Then she looked up at the sky, the boiling clouds glowing with a faint deathly phosphorescence, a river of dark energy twisting through the clouds like a ribbon, and she shook her head with resignation. The rift would keep spreading and growing bigger and there would finally be nowhere left to run from the darkness sweeping over the planet. She knew it was too late, that the crossover had begun--but she still had to try something.  
  
All these thoughts filled her mind as she ran forward, each step seeming to bounce up and down as the past and future echoed, the few yards between the porch and the circle seeming to stretch into miles, leaving her panting as she took a final leap over the burning edge of the sign...and vanished.  
  
9  
  
Cold sweeping darkness engulfed her and countless grasping claws scraped at her arms and legs as she hung in the air, wrapping her arms tight around the floating girl. Buffy opened her eyes for a moment and closed them tight at the sight of the vortex of nameless things around her, countless eyes glaring out of the squirming darkness, an endless black void twisting and coalescing around them, trying to rip Buffy away from Dawn.  
  
Clutching razor-tipped talons tore at her sleeves and she screamed as she felt them digging into her flesh, trying to rip her loose from the hovering, chanting girl, to send her spiralling down into the shapeless void between worlds. She tightened her embrace as her legs dangled over the howling abyss, then looked up suddenly as she felt her sister's arms vanishing. Dawn glowed with a cold white light and as Buffy watched, the young girl's fingers and wrists began to dissolve into a floating fairy- dust of pale light trailing away into the darkness.  
  
"No," Buffy groaned as her sister Dawn began to evaporate, reverting from her human form into the cold shapeless energy that had spawned her, then her voice rose to a frantic scream, "YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!!!"  
  
Her legs beat against the sliding shapes behind her and she pressed the bottom of her shoes against the crawling flesh, hugging Dawn tight as she kicked herself forward and knocked her sister loose from the invisible force holding her in the center of the void. She bounced against the grasping claws and sprang forward into the darkness, deafening shrieks howling around her as bodiless limbs and talons raked at her. She tried to kick them away as she hurtled forward, still grasping Dawn, screaming as they began to tumble into the abyss.  
  
Suddenly a flash of red light filled her eyes as she flew over the edge of the circle and she slammed against hard frozen mud, her sister still in her arms as she rolled onto her back and opened her eyes, the twilight darkness of the woods almost blinding after the sunless abyss within the mark.  
  
The whirling column of dark spirits twisted and gyrated wildly against the clouds overhead and she closed her eyes again, shielding Dawn with her body as a cyclone of twigs and branches swept around them. Flying leaves and branches twisted around the cabin as the low growling chant rose into an enraged scream, then slowly began to fade into ringing silence. Buffy looked up for a moment, then twisted her head way as an explosion of blinding white light filled the sky, searing her eyes her for several seconds before it finally began to fade away.  
  
Warm yellow sunlight streamed through the leafless branches and birds chirped and whistled all around the clearing as Buffy slowly pushed herself up to her feet. She shook her head weakly and glanced down at the cuts and bruises covering her limbs, then slowly turned her aching neck as she looked around at the woods. The cabin stood silent and ordinary in the middle of the bright autumn forest, shadows stretching through the woods as the sun rose into the cloudless blue sky. She smiled softly as she saw Xander on the other side of the clearing helping Anya to her feet then nearly losing his balance as she threw her arms around him.  
  
She turned around to see Willow running to her, her cheeks streaked with tears as she smiled and grabbed Buffy around the neck, hugging her tightly and silently for a moment before turning back to Tara and kissing her on her forehead and lips. The group made its way to the front of the cabin, where only a few smoldering leaves remained of the magic circle that'd filled the yard a few moments ago, and Willow slowly sat down beside Buffy, who had knelt beside her younger sister's motionless body to check her pulse.  
  
"I-is she," Willow stuttered, then paused, "will she be okay?"  
  
"Yeah," Buffy answered, "she's just unconscious. I can't blame her, after all that" she looked up at the rest of them, her face drawn with concern, "what about Giles and Spike?"  
  
10  
  
Agonizing screams filled the brightly-lit sanctuary as Giles stood up cautiously, looking out the broken church doors at the chirping forest, watching the sun rise between the gently sloping mountains.  
  
"OW! Ow, ow, ow! How in the HELL did I end up with a bleedin' pole stuck through me?! Ow, ow, and OW, god this HURTS! Rupert, will you pull this bloody thing out of me, it feels like the thing's on fire!! And oh yeah, I think I might have left out the part about this...HURTING LIKE HELL! OW!!"  
  
"That depends," Giles looked down into the pit, tilting his head, "how much are you paying me?"  
  
"Oh, now that's funny, mate," Spike growled up from the floor, "I'm laughing on the inside and if you look closely at this GAPING HOLE IN MY CHEST you can probably see it! Now come on, hurry it up!" 


	6. Epilogue: Daybreak

Buffy vs. the Evil Dead  
  
by Demon-Fighter Ash  
  
Epilogue: Daybreak  
  
"And you say I was really scary," Spike called out from the sheet- draped back of the station-wagon as the rest of the group sat in the car, the station-wagon perched on the side of the road as they waited for Xander to finish jump-starting the dead battery.  
  
"Yes," Giles sighed, having already told the story countless times but feeling a little like he owed Spike at least this much, "you were absolutely terrifying. Quite possibly the worst thing I've ever seen."  
  
"That's right," Spike gloated, then paused a moment, thinking, "I'll bet you wet yourself."  
  
"I did no such thing," Giles quickly protested.  
  
"Well anyway, I had a good time," the vampire said cheerfully as he checked the bandages wrapped around his chest, "I say we go on our little camping trip. We could even head back to that cabin."  
  
"Spike," Buffy groaned, exhausted, "we haven't slept all night. You can go camping if you want, but the rest of us are going back to Sunnydale where we'll never have to look at another tree again."  
  
"Suit yourself," Spike smirked, obviously elated, "but I know you're really just scared you'd have to face big bad deadite-Spike again. I can't say I blame you."  
  
Xander opened the front door and turned the ignition, the engine roaring and humming steadily. He smiled and nodded to the gang, then stepped back out of the car to thank the couple that'd stopped to help them jump-start the station wagon.  
  
"To think we got through all that," Buffy complained, "and a stalled engine gets the best of us."  
  
"Do you think the bridge was really out last night," Anya asked, glancing out the window at the bridge behind them, "it was back this morning and we crossed right over it."  
  
"I don't know," Giles answered, "it could have been an illusion, or it could have been part of the changes that the spell caused. Either way the bridge was restored the moment the spell ended."  
  
"Do you think Dawn will be okay," Buffy asked nervously.  
  
"It'll take some time," Giles answered, "but hopefully Willow and Tara can answer some of her questions on their way back in the convertible. If anybody's equipped to explain this for her, they are."  
  
"But you could still give it a try," Buffy suggested, "what happened back there?"  
  
"Yeah," Anya agreed, "and what is Dawn anyway?"  
  
"Anya," Buffy shot a quick glare at her.  
  
"It's really a fair question," Giles remarked, "though as tactlessly phrased as ever."  
  
"It seems likely that the Dark Ones made the key," Giles continued thoughtfully, "just before they went extinct, to ensure that the gates could still be opened when they lost their hold on the mortal plane. The Book of the Dead was apparently meant to work in conjunction with the key. The passages in the book would summon their spirits and then they would use the key to open the gate and return to this world as creatures of flesh."  
  
"Like slipping their fingers under a locked door," Spike remarked, "and then grabbing the key on the other side to open it."  
  
"But it would seem that that never actually happened," he continued, "the monks found the key and they kept it safe, hiding it away so that nobody could ever bring the two together."  
  
"Well no wonder they were always so mad when the Book was read," Anya answered, "they get summoned from across dimensions, expecting to find the key, and all they get are a few dumb kids in an empty forest."  
  
"Could you just clear up one thing," Spike asked, "how come we're not all dead?"  
  
"Once they took possession of Dawn," Giles continued, "they tried to use her to force open the gateway between our worlds, even though the doors are normally closed during this phase of the alignment. When Buffy pulled her out of the rift, the doorway naturally slammed shut again, and since the spirits hadn't finished crossing over, they fell back through the gate when it closed, like a rubber-band snapping back."  
  
"But how did they even know about Dawn," Buffy asked, "that's why they lured us here, isn't it?"  
  
"I suspect," Giles rubbed the back of his neck, "that we have Glory to thank for that."  
  
"What," Buffy said in a low voice, tensing.  
  
"When Glory used Dawn to open a rift between worlds," Giles answered, "it merged countless dimensions together for several minutes. The effect must have reached into their world, so that for a few moments they saw into ours, saw what their...key had become, and how to get it back."  
  
"And when Glory opened her gate," Anya offered helpfully, "it weakened the boundary between worlds, letting them make that phone-call. That's how they lured us here."  
  
"I believe," Giles pouted a little, "that was my line."  
  
"Oh, it's no secret," Anya shrugged, her mouth half-full as she chewed on a granola bar, "pan-dimensional aftershocks can last for months after a big disturbance. Every time I granted a wish, every kind of demon you can imagine would start trying to jump across before the wall closed again. That's what happened over at Woodstock. A whole interdimensional festival started just because I granted this one farmgirl's wish for..."  
  
"Woodstock," Buffy said in disbelief.  
  
"Didn't you see their outfits," Anya answered with a nod, swallowing her chocolate-chip granola, "that kind of fashion sense could only have come from the outer darkness. Mostly rainbow-wraiths."  
  
"Anyway," Buffy said with a cock-eyed stare, her tone quickly rising into worry, "do you think they'll come after Dawn again, now that they know about her?"  
  
"I seriously doubt it," Giles answered, "they have no real presence in this world, so they most likely used up their remaining strength just breaching the barrier and making that phone-call. Without the book, they'll probably never be able to cross over into our world again."  
  
"That's a lot of probablies," Spike said cheerfully, "I might get a rematch with them after all."  
  
"We'll perform a few binding spells when we get back," Giles answered with a glare, "just in case."  
  
"Oh come on," Spike complained, "where's your sense of adventure?"  
  
Xander opened the front door and sat behind the wheel, pulling the car off the side of the road.  
  
"You said thanks for us," Buffy asked him, "right? We would have gotten out and talked to them but, you know, bruises and blood-stained clothes and all..."  
  
"They were cool," Xander answered, "I just told them it was a long trip and the rest of you were asleep while I drove you back to town."  
  
"Better to seem lazy than seem rude," Buffy shrugged reluctantly.  
  
"The guy works at S-Mart. You know the one with that commercial," Xander broke into song for a moment, "'Shop Smart, Shop S-mart?' He and his girlfriend Jenny are camping this weekend."  
  
"I can't stand that jingle," Spike muttered.  
  
"Anyway, he said I have real potential," Xander continued, ignoring the vampire, "He had kind of a wierd Micheal Jackson thing going on, though- -a black glove on his right hand."  
  
"You did warn him," Giles asked quickly, "that these woods aren't safe, didn't you?"  
  
"I tried," Xander shrugged, "but he said he had some unfinished business here. I told him we saw some strange stuff while we were camping, but he just laughed and said 'tell me about it.' Oh yeah, his girlfriend said something kinda wierd too--she laughed and said 'don't get him started about being the Warrior from the Sky.'"  
  
Giles and Buffy both bolted upright in shock.  
  
"Warrior from the Sky," Buffy muttered, eyes wide, then sighed deeply and leaned back against the carseat, "I give up. Fire bad, trees bad, books bad...paved streets good. Let's just get out of here."  
  
"What kind of car is that," Anya asked curiously as she watched the couple drive off.  
  
"A 1992 Oldsmobile Delta '88," Xander answered proudly, "groovy."  
  
"Groovy," Buffy asked in disbelief, "who says groovy anymore?!"  
  
"Hey," Xander said defensively, "I kept a straight face with 'hail to the scooby gang!'"  
  
"Hail to the what," Giles muttered in confusion, shaking his head as Xander flipped on the radio.  
  
"That's different," Buffy laughed, "I'm the slayer, I get punning rights."  
  
The station-wagon pulled onto the highway as the group cheerfully bickered, heading back to Sunnydale as the beat-up yellow Delta '88 drove across the bridge and disappeared into the wilderness. 


End file.
